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PSYCHOANALYSIS 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ITS  HISTORY 

THEORY 

AND  PRACTICE 

by 

ANDRE  TRIDON 


"We  are  what  we  are  because  we  have  been 
what  we  have  been,  and  wliat  is  needed  for 
solving  the  problem  of  human  life  and  motives 
it  not  moral  estimates  but  more  knowledge." 

Freud 


NEW  YORK     B.  W.  HUEBSCH,  Inc.     MCMXXII 

LONDON 

KEGAN  PAUL,  TRENCH,  TRUBNER  &  Co.,  Ltd. 

BROADWAY  HOUSE,  68-74  CARTER  LANE,  E.C. 


COPYRIGHT,   1919,   BY   B.    W.    HUEBSCH 

PRINTBD   IN   O.    S.    A.  .-.^ 

BPI73 

-       3. 

First  frinline,  Dtctmbtr,  1919 

Sictnd  trinHne,  Juni,  1920  BIOLOGV 

Thi/d  fhntint,  Febn'Mi;/,  1921  LIBRARV 

Fturth  frinting,  Augui:,  1921 

Pfth  printirts,  Ap<il    ^922 


THIS  BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY   DEDICATED 

TO 
FLORENCE  TRIDON 


5  I  i  4  i  o 


The  author  acknowledges  his  Indebtedness  to  Dr. 
C.  J.  Jung  of  Zurich,  Dr.  Smith  Ely  Jelliffe  of  New  York 
City,  Dr.  William  A.  White  of  Washington,  D.  C,  Dr. 
Edward  J.  Kempf  of  Washington,  D.  C,  Dr.  Gregory 
Stragnell  of  New  York  City,  Stanton  Leeds  and  Robert 
Allerton  Parker  of  New  York  City  who  have  either  sup- 
plied him  with  material  or  revised  parts  of  his  manuscript 
or  offered  editorial  suggestions. 


PREFACE 

There  Is  no  dearth  of  excellent  books  on  psychoan- 
alysis. For  the  general  public,  however,  they  are  of  lit- 
tle practical  value.  They  presuppose  a  knowledge  of  the 
subject  and  a  familiarity  with  medical  and  analytic  terms 
which  the  average  reader  does  not  possess.  Moreover, 
they  are,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  special  monographs 
dealing  with  some  definite  detail  of  theory  or  practice 
from  the  exclusive  point  of  view  of  one  of  the  various 
schools  of  analysis. 

What  I  have  attempted  to  do  in  the  present  volume  is 
to  sum  up  in  a  concise  form  the  views  of  the  greatest 
American  and  foreign  analysts  which  at  present  are  scat- 
tered in  hundreds  of  books,  pamphlets  and  magazine 
articles.  I  have,  whenever  possible,  presented  their 
thought  in  their  own  words,  through  either  direct  quota- 
tion or  condensation. 

This  is  to  be  an  unpartisan  treatment  of  the  subject. 
While  I  profess  the  deepest  respect  for  Sigmund  Freud, 
and  believe  that  but  for  his  scientific  insight  and  his  un- 
tiring labors,  psychoanalysis  would  probably  be  to-day 
an  undeveloped,  inaccurate  set  of  hypotheses,  I  hold  that 
Jung's  and  Adler's  theories  are  of  inestimable  value,  and 
that  no  analysis  would  be  complete  which  did  not  take 
into  account  the  researches  of  the  "  Zurich  School  "  and 
of  the  **  Individual  Psychologists." 

An  unprejudiced  perusal  of  the  history  of  the  analytic 


PREFACE 

movement  has  convinced  me  that  personal  animus  was  in 
the  main  responsible  for  the  fact  that  the  three  great 
European  analysts  struck  diverging  paths.  There  are, 
however,  no  irreconcilable  differences  separating  their 
points  of  view. 

It  is  most  gratifying  to  note  that  no  such  unpleasant 
feelings  have  disturbed  the  relations  existing  between  men 
like  White,  Jelliffe,  Jones  and  Kempf  in  the  United 
States  and  Canada. 

Rising  far  above  the  level  of  personal  likes  and  dis- 
likes, the  American  analysts  have  done  much  to  unify 
the  analytic  theories  into  a  coherent  and  inclusive  system 
and  to  make  psychoanalysis  a  means  of  reinterpretation 
of  life  and  behavior. 

An  effort  has  been  made  in  the  present  book  to  avoid 
technical  terms  whenever  the  current  vernacular  offered 
adequate  equivalents.  The  terminology  of  psychoanaly- 
sis being  new  and  unusual,  every  analytical  expression  has 
been  elucidated  when  first  encountered.  Should  the 
reader's  memory  fail  him,  he  will  find  at  the  end  of  the 
book  a  glossary  explaining  in  the  simplest  possible  way 
the  meaning  of  every  new  word  employed  by  the  new 
science. 

Andre  Tridon. 
121  Madison  Avenue, 

New  York  City. 
October  ii,  19 19. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGft 

Preface vii 

I  The  History  of  Psychoanalytic  Research     .       i 

II  The  Unconscious  and  the  Urges    .      .      .      .     17 

III  The  Repression  of  the  Urges     .....     29 

IV  Night  Dreams  and  Day  Dreams     ....     39 
V  Symbols,  the  Language  of  the  Dream  ...     52 

VI  The  Dreams  of  the  Human  Race    ....     61 

VII  The  Psychology  of  Everyday  Actions  ...     76 

VIII     Feminism  and  Radicalism 89 

IX    The  Psychology  of  Wit 103 

X    The  Artistic  Temperament 119 

XI     The  Urges  and  Literature 128 

XII     The  Urges  and  the  Arts 137 

XIII  Forms  of  Abnormal  Compensation  ....   146 

XIV  The  CEdipus  Complex 150 

XV  The  Neuroses,  Epilepsies  and  Psychoses  .     .163 

XVI     Perversions 181 

XVII     Crime  and  Punishment 194 

XVIII  The  Psychoanalytic  Treatment     ....  201 

XIX    The  Transference 223 

XX     Re-education  and  Prophylaxis 230 

XXI    The  New  Ethics 241 

Glossary        255 

Bibliography 259 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 

CHAPTER  I 

THE    HISTORY   OF    PSYCHOANALYTIC   RESEARCH 

Psychoanalysis  is  a  very  young  science.  The  world 
knew  nothing  of  it  until  Freud  delivered  his  first  lectures 
on  the  subject  in  1895.  In  those  few  years,  however, 
psychoanalysis  has  made  a  deep  impression  on  all  the 
mental  sciences  and  has  especially  revolutionized  psychol- 
ogy, ethics  and  psychiatry. 

Its  terminology,  at  first  forbidding,  has  enriched  the 
language  with  entirely  new  expressions,  without  which 
the  cultured  would  find  themselves  helpless  in  psychologi- 
cal discussions.  It  has  supplied  not  only  physicians  but 
artists,  thinkers,  sociologists,  educators  and  critics,  with  a 
new  point  of  view.  It  offers  to  the  average  man  and 
woman  a  new  rational  code  of  behavior  based  on  science 
instead  of  faith. 

A  survey  of  the  gradual  development  of  psychoanalysis 
will  make  the  novel  point  of  view  it  has  introduced  into 
intellectual  life  more  vital  and  more  understandable. 

Psychoanalysis  is  too  accurate  a  scientific  Instrument 
to  be  mastered  in  one  day.  It  requires  close  application 
rather  than  flights  of  fancy,  a  painstaking  study  of  all 
details  rather  than  broad  and  facile  generalizations. 

It  was  gradually  brought  Into  being  by  applying  Claude 


2  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Bernard's  method,  "  Look  at  facts  over  and  over  again, 
without  previous  bias,  until  they  begin  to  tell  you  some- 
thing." 

It  must  be  studied  in  the  same  spirit. 

Socrates  was  probably  the  first  thinker  who  realized  the 
importance  of  the  unconscious  and  of  self-knowledge. 
His  commandment:  "Know  Thyself"  and  his  theory 
of  "  intellectual  midwifery  "  remind  one  strangely  of  the 
modern  analyst's  creed  and  methods. 

From  Socrates  to  Charcot,  however,  very  little  prog- 
ress was  accomplished  in  the  practical  study  of  the  uncon- 
scious. The  Stoics'  denial  of  pain,  Kant's  pamphlet  on 
"  The  power  of  the  mind,  through  simple  determination, 
to  master  morbid  ideas,"  Feuchtersleben's  search  for  a 
harmony  against  which  sickness  could  not  prevail,  merely 
paved  the  way  for  Mrs.  Eddy's  religious  therapeutics. 

At  the  end  of  the  sixties,  the  study  of  the  unconscious 
from  a  medical  point  of  view  suddenly  spread  over  Eu- 
rope. Dr.  Charcot  of  the  Salpetriere  made  valuable  ob- 
servations on  the  connection  between  suggestion  and  hys- 
terical symptoms.  He  denied,  however,  that  any  thera- 
peutic method  could  be  established  upon  that  basis.  In 
Nancy,  Dr.  Berheim  and  Dr.  Liebault  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  hypnotism  could  always  be  relied  upon  to 
bring  about  some  change,  however  slight,  for  the  better, 
in  the  course  of  functional  diseases.  In  Sweden,  Wetter- 
strand,  influenced  by  Liebault's  writings,  treated  thou- 
sands of  patients  by  the  hypnotic  rest  cure  and  by  sug- 
gestion in  waking  states. 

Austrian  scientists  were  destined  to  throw  an  entirely 
new  light  upon  the  study  of  mental  states,  and  to  devise 
a  novel  method  of  treatment  for  mental  disturbances. 


THE   HISTORY  OF   PSYCHOANALYTIC   RESEARCH         3 

About  1880  an  old  Viennese  physician,  Dr.  Breuer, 
had  among  his  patients  a  young  woman  of  twenty-one, 
suffering  from  curious  hysterical  symptoms,  among  them 
severe  paralysis  of  the  right  arm,  disturbance  of  eye- 
movements,  a  loss  of  the  power  to  drink,  almost  com- 
plete aphasia,  states  of  "  absence,"  etc. 

The  disturbances  first  appeared  while  the  patient  was 
nursing  her  father,  to  whom  she  was  greatly  attached, 
during  the  severe  Illness  which  led  to  his  death. 

Dr.  Breuer  diagnosed  the  case  as  hysteria.  He  vainly 
tried  to  remove  the  symptoms  through  hypnotism,  and  for 
a  while  all  he  could  do  was  to  observe  the  development 
of  the  malady.  This  he  did  with  unusual  sympathy  and 
interest.  He  noticed  first  that  the  patient  In  her  states 
of  "  absence  "  mumbled  strange  words  to  herself;  Breuer 
hypnotized  her  and  made  her  repeat  those  words  a  great 
many  times,  causing  her  to  reproduce  for  him  the  fancies 
which  dominated  her  mind  in  her  "  absences."  Those 
fancies  were  sad  day  dreams  which  commonly  took  as 
their  starting-point  the  situation  of  a  young  girl  beside 
the  sick-bed  of  her  father. 

Whenever  she  told  those  fancies  she  was  for  several 
hours  restored  to  a  normal  condition.  A  few  hours  later 
the  "  clouds  "  reappeared  and  the  newly  created  obses- 
sion had  to  be  removed  under  hypnosis. 

One  symptom,  however,  her  inability  to  drink,  van- 
ished entirely,  without  recurrence,  after  the  fancy  con- 
nected with  It  had  been  told  in  detail  and  with  a  great  deal 
of  emotion. 

She  bega*  to  tell  about  her  English  governess  whom 
she  disliked  greatly  and  of  that  woman's  little  dog  whom 
she  abhorred.     One  day  she  saw  the  dog  drink  out  of  a 


4  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

glass.  She  felt  an  intense  disgust  which  she  repressed 
out  of  conventional  respect  for  the  governess. 

After  giving  unrestrained  expression  in  the  hypnotic 
state  to  her  hatred  for  the  governess  and  the  dog,  and  to 
her  disgust  over  the  dog's  action,  the  patient  felt  con- 
siderably relieved.  When  awakened  she  could  take  a 
glass  and  drink  a  large  quantity  of  water. 

Her  visual  disturbances  were  also  traced  to  a  painful 
scene  in  which  a  strong  emotion  was  repressed:  The 
patient,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  was  sitting  at  the  bedside 
of  her  dying  father.  The  father  suddenly  asked  what 
the  time  was.  She  tried  to  suppress  the  tears  which 
blinded  her,  and  to  conceal  them,  and  for  that  purpose 
raised  her  watch  very  close  to  her  eyes,  so  that  the  dial 
seemed  very  large  and  distorted.  The  resultant  symp- 
toms were  an  abnormal  enlarging  of  the  objects  she  saw 
and  severe  strabism. 

We  come  finally  to  the  paralysis  of  her  left  arm. 

One  night,  while  waiting  for  the  surgeon  who  was  com- 
ing from  Vienna  to  operate  on  her  father,  she  fell  asleep, 
exhausted,  her  arm  hanging  over  the  back  of  her  chair. 

She  had  a  dream  in  which  she  saw  a  black  snake  coming 
out  of  the  wall  and  creeping  toward  the  bed.  She  tried 
to  frighten  the  snake  away  by  a  motion  of  her  right  arm. 
But  her  arm  had  "  gone  to  sleep  "  and  she  could  not  move 
it.  Looking  at  the  fingers  of  her  right  hand  she  saw 
them  transformed  into  little  snakes.  Terrified  by  the 
combination  of  the  dream  and  the  anaesthesia  of  her  arm, 
she  tried  to  pray  but  could  only  utter  a  few  English  sen- 
tences which  turned  out  to  be  scraps  of  nursery  rhymes. 
After  this  she  continued  to  think  and  speak  in  English, 


THE    HISTORY   OF    PSYCHOANALYTIC   RESEARCH         5 

being  unable  to  speak  or  understand  her  native  tongue, 
which  was  German. 

Repeated  descriptions  of  that  frightful  scene  gradually 
removed  the  disturbance  of  her  speech  power.  A  little 
later  the  paralysis  of  her  right  arm  and  all  the  other 
symptoms  disappeared  completely. 

This  method  of  investigation  under  hypnosis  which 
Breuer's  patient  called  the  "  talking  cure  "  or  "  chimney 
sweeping,"  and  which  Breuer  designated  as  the  "  cathar- 
tic method,"  constituted  a  tremendous  advance  upon  the 
mere  suggestive  technique  under  which  commands  were 
given  to  the  patient  and  which  precluded  the  possibility 
of  any  scientific  inquiry. 

Breuer  did  not  seem  to  realize  the  importance  of  his 
discovery,  and  only  resumed  his  "  talking  treatments  " 
when  Freud,  after  studying  under  Charcot,  returned  to 
Vienna  and  prevailed  upon  him  to  do  so.  He  and  Freud 
practiced  that  method  for  a  while,  guiding  the  patient's 
attention  to  the  scene  during  which  morbid  symptoms  had 
made  their  first  appearance,  and  causing  the  patient  to 
live  it  over  and  get  rid,  in  the  process,  of  the  excitement 
he  once  repressed. 

They  noticed  that  if  the  patient  remained  unmoved 
while  reproducing  the  crucial  scene,  the  process  had  no 
curative  effect.  Their  conclusion  was  that  the  patient 
fell  ill  because  the  emotion  developed  in  the  crucial  sit- 
uation had  been  prevented  from  escaping  normally  and 
had  been  "  converted  "  into  some  abnormal  physical  or 
mental  symptom. 

They  discovered  then  one  of  the  characteristics  of  neu- 
rotic processes,  which  Freud  later  called  the  "  regres- 


6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

sion."  The  patient's  memory  generally  carried  him  back 
to  a  period  antedating  the  crucial  scene  which  ushered  in 
the  neurosis.  This  forced  the  analyst  to  occupy  himself, 
not  with  the  present  but  with  the  past.  The  regression 
sometimes  led  him  back  to  the  period  of  puberty.  Some- 
times it  even  led  him  back  to  the  years  of  childhood  and 
infancy,  which  until  then  had  not  been  accessible  to  any 
sort  of  investigation.  Freud  and  Breuer  were  compelled 
to  admit  that  every  pathological  experience  presupposed 
an  earlier  one  which,  while  not  necessarily  pathological 
In  itself,  lent  a  pathological  character  to  the  later  occur- 
rence. 

Freud  and  Breuer  soon  parted  company,  as  they  dis- 
agreed upon  the  role  which  sexuality  plays  in  the  forma- 
tion of  neuroses.  But  Freud  has  always  expressed  the 
most  respectful  gratitude  to  his  old  teacher  and  given  him 
full  credit  for  many  things  he  himself  originated. 

In  1893  Freud  published  the  results  of  his  first  experi- 
ments, and  In  that  year  he  gave  up  entirely  the  practice  of 
hypnotism. 

The  fanciful  and  mystical  character  of  hynotism  re- 
pelled him,  as  it  repelled  Jung,  and  when  he  discovered 
that  some  of  his  patients  could  not  be  hypnotized  he  de- 
cided to  make  his  method  of  treatment  independent  of 
hypnotic  suggestion. 

While  studying  with  Bernhelm  in  Nancy  he  had  learned 
that,  contrary  to  the  current  opinion,  patients  who  have 
been  hypnotized  do  not  actually  lose  the  memory  of  their 
somnambulic  experiences.  The  memory  of  those  experi- 
ences can  be  brought  back  in  normal  waking  states,  by 
persistent  urging  and  by  giving  the  patient  the  assurance 


THE    HISTORY   OF   PSYCHOANALYTIC    RESEARCH         7 

that  he  can  remember  all  that  took  place  during  his  som- 
nambulic "  trance." 

Freud  adopted  that  procedure  with  his  patients. 
When  he  reached  a  point  at  which  the  patient  declared 
that  he  knew  nothing  more,  Freud  assured  him  that  his 
memory  would  return  when  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  pa- 
tient's forehead.  He  abandoned  that  "  laying  of  hands  " 
later  and  simply  let  the  patient  speak  on  any  subject  that 
came  to  his  mind,  convinced  that  nothing  could  occur  to 
the  patient  which  did  not  bear  directly  or  indirectly  upon 
the  "  sore  spot  "  in  his  unconscious. 

He  decided  to  communicate  his  discoveries  to  the  pub- 
lic by  means  of  lectures.  His  first  lectures,  delivered  in 
1895,  attracted  an  audience  of  only  three,  Sadger,  Ad- 
ler  and  Stekel.  Sadger  remained  his  faithful  follower; 
Adler  and  Stekel  struck  out  paths  of  their  own. 

After  studying  a  number  of  striking  dreams  his  patients 
related  to  him,  Freud  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  pa- 
tient's dreams  stand  in  a  close  connection  with  his  mental 
conflict.  He  began  to  collect  an  enormous  amount  of 
material  which  was  all  assembled  by  1896  and  reduced  to 
book  form  in  1899. 

In  1900  a  group  of  Swiss  physicians,  led  by  C.  G. 
Jung,  began  to  treat  patients  according  to  the  analytic 
method  in  Burgholzli,  the  clinic  of  psychiatry  in  Zurich. 
One  after  another,  they  went  to  confer  with  Freud,  and 
in  1908  the  first  analytical  congress  took  place  in  Salz- 
burg by  invitation  of  Jung.  The  first  result  of  that  con- 
gress was  the  founding  of  a  review,  Jahrhuch  fiir  Psycho- 
analytische  iind  Psychopatholog'ische  Forschungen,  pub- 
lished by  Bleuler  and  Freud  and  edited  by  Jung. 


8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Freud,  who  had  been  violently  attacked  by  every  med- 
ical publication,  and  treated  with  scant  courtesy  at  meet- 
ings where  he  read  reports  of  his  cases,  found  in  the 
Zurich  men  faithful  supporters.  Most  of  his  followers 
came  to  him  by  way  of  Zurich. 

The  Zurich  school  developed  cleverly  the  association 
experiments  initiated  by  the  Wundt  School,  and  thus 
bridged  the  chasm  between  experimental  psychology  and 
psychoanalysis. 

Jung  propounded  also  the  important  theory  of  "  com- 
plexes "  or  groups  of  emotional  ideas  in  a  repressed  state. 

The  second  psychoanalytic  congress  took  place  in  Nur- 
emberg in  March,  19 lo.  A  certain  disharmony  was  no- 
ticeable among  those  present.  The  International  Psy- 
choanalytic Association  was  organised,  with  Jung  as 
chairman  and  Ricklin  as  secretary.  It  was  also  decided 
to  publish  a  journal  "  to  foster  and  further  the  science 
of  psychoanalysis  as  founded  by  Freud,  both  as  pure  psy- 
chology and  in  its  application  to  medicine  and  the  mental 
sciences,  and  to  assist  the  members  in  their  efforts  to  ac- 
quire and  to  spread  psychoanalytic  knowledge." 

The  Viennese  group  opposed  the  project  and  Adler 
expressed  publicly  his  fear  of  a  possible  censorship  and 
limitation  of  scientific  freedom  by  Freud. 

The  new  journal  Zentralblatt  fur  Psychoanalyse,  wa3 
to  be  edited  by  Freud  and  the  first  issue  appeared  in 
September,   19 10. 

The  third  congress  took  place  at  Weimar  in  Septem- 
ber, 191 1,  the  fourth  one  in  Munich  in  September,  1913, 
both  of  them  with  Jung  as  chairman.  Jung  was  re- 
elected chairman  of  the  International  Psychoanalytic  As- 
sociation, although  two-fifths  of  the  members  refused  him 


THE    HISTORY  OF   PSYCHOANALYTIC   RESEARCH         9^ 

their  support.  "  We  took  leave  from  one  another," 
Freud  wrote  on  that  occasion,  "  without  feeling  the  need 
to  meet  again." 

The  dissensions  which  had  been  breeding  for  some  time 
brought  about  two  secessions  in  the  psychoanalytic  group. 

Adler  left  the  Vienna  group  shortly  before  the  Wei- 
mar congress  and  the  Swiss  school  seceded  soon  after- 
ward. Adler  founded  a  new  group  called  the  Society 
for  Free  Psychoanalysis,  then  abandoned  altogether  the 
word  "  psychoanalysis  "  and  designated  his  teaching  an 
"  Individual  Psychology."  While  psychoanalysis  under 
Freud's  guidance  endeavored  to  show  that  all  ego  striv- 
ings were  tinged  with  sexuality,  Adler  insisted  that  all  sex- 
ual feelings  contained  an  admixture  of  egotism.  He 
traced  the  origin  of  the  neurosis  to  a  real  or  imaginary 
feeling  of  inferiority  due  to  some  organ  deficiency. 

The  Swiss  school,  many  members  of  which  were  clergy- 
men, modified  Freud's  sexual  theories  so  as  to  bring 
about  a  reconciliation  between  psychoanalysis  on  the  one 
hand,  and  traditional  ethics  and  religion  on  the  other. 
This  they  did  by  assuming  that  certain  elements  consid- 
ered by  Freud  as  sexual  are  purely  symbolical  and  hence 
conventionally  unobjectionable. 

In  a  letter  dated  September  5,  19 19,  Jung,  asked  to 
define  his  attitude  to  the  various  schools  of  psychoanalysis, 
wrote  me  that  he  was  trying  to  reconcile  the  contradic- 
tory views  through  a  theory  of  attitude  and  a  different 
appreciation  of  symbolism.  He  was  working  on  a  book 
on  the  Problem  of  Attitude  and  Types  of  Attitude. 
His  present  views  concerning  Freud  and  Adler  are  pre- 
sented, he  added,  in  his  "  Collected  Papers  on  Analytical 
Psychology,"  pp.  299,  336,  367,  sqq. 


10  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

The  Zurich  method,  especially  as  applied  by  pastors, 
pays  little  attention  to  tracing  the  neurosis  to  its  actual 
source  in  childhood  but  prescribes  inner  concentration, 
religious  meditation,  etc. 

Whether  one  sides  with  one  of  the  three  schools  or, 
as  the  author  does,  finds  in  every  one  of  the  three  points 
of  view  suggestions  of  value  in  the  study  of  every  case, 
(for  in  certain  patients  the  sex  element  is  more  accen- 
tuated, in  others  parental  influences  in  a  symbolic  or  de- 
sexualized  form  are  clearly  paramount,  in  others  a  feel- 
ing of  inferiority  dominates  the  situation,  the  three  ele- 
ments being  always  present),  only  a  thorough  study  of 
Freud's  writings  can  enable  the  student  to  acquire  a  clear 
understanding  of  psychoanalysis. 

His  "  Papers  on  Hysteria,"  his  "  Contributions  to  the 
Sexual  Theory  "  and  his  "  Interpretation  of  Dreams," 
constitute  the  foundation  of  modern  psychoanalysis. 

His  book  on  "  Wit  and  the  Unconscious  "  and  on  the 
"  Psychopathology  of  Everyday  Life  "  furnished  the  first 
examples  of  application  of  the  analytical  theory  to  aes- 
thetic themes  and  to  normal  actions.  In  "  Totem  and 
Taboo  "  he  has  discussed  the  problems  of  race  psychol- 
ogy in  the  light  of  analytical  psychology. 

Practical  applications  of  the  analytical  method  to  the 
study  of  art  and  letters  have  been  published  by  Karl 
Abraham,  Otto  Rank,  Ricklin  and  others  who  have 
shown  that  myths,  fairy  tales  and  hero  legends  are  akin 
to  the  infantile  scenes  of  many  of  our  dreams  and  consti- 
tute, so  to  speak,  the  day-dreams  of  the  human  race  in  its 
infancy. 

Psychoanalysis  found  ready  acceptance  in  Austria, 
Germany,  England  and  the  British  colonies. 


THE    HISTORY   OF   PSYCHOANALYTIC   RESEARCH       H 

France  showed  herself  rather  unreceptive.  Morl- 
cheau-Beauchant  of  Poitiers  was  the  first  Frenchman  t> 
accept  it  openly.  Regis  and  Henard  of  Bordeaux  ac- 
cepted it  in  part,  rejecting  only  the  Freudian  symbolism. 

Italy  has  taken  very  little  interest  in  the  new  science. 

Psychoanalysis  was  introduced  in  Holland  by  Jel- 
gersma,  rector  of  the  University  of  Leyden,  in  1904,  and 
has  been  studied  by  Van  Emden,  Van  Ophuijsen  and  Van 
Renterghem  particularly  from  the  theoretical  side. 

In  Sweden,  Poul  Bjerre,  Wetterstrand's  successor,  gave 
up  his  practice  of  hypnosis  to  join  the  Freudian  school. 

In  Norway,  A.  Vogt  of  Chrlstiania  mentioned  psycho- 
analysis in  a  book  on  psychiatry  published  in  1907. 

In  Russia  psychoanalysis  is  generally  known.  Wulff 
of  Odessa,  Ossipof  and  Bernstein  of  Moscow,  and  Pov- 
nitzki  of  Petrograd,  have  published  numerous  articles  on 
the  subject. 

In  Poland  the  practice  and  literature  of  psychoanalysis 
have  been  introduced  by  L.  Jekels. 

In  the  autumn  of  1909  psychoanalysis  was  ofiiclally  in- 
troduced to  the  scientists  of  America  when  Freud  and 
Jung  were  invited  by  Stanley  Hall  of  Clark  University 
to  come  and  lecture  on  Psychoanalysis.  S.  Ferenczi  ac- 
companied them.  Canada  was  represented  by  Ernest 
Jones  of  Toronto  University,  the  United  States  by  A.  A. 
Brill  of  New  York.  Professor  James  J.  Putnam  of  Har- 
vard, who,  until  then,  had  been  rather  sceptical  in  his 
attitude  toward  psychoanalysis,  befriended  the  new  move- 
ment on  which  he  delivered  many  lectures.  A.  A.  Brill 
began  to  translate  Freud's  work  into  English,  an  under- 
taking which  required  infinite  effort  and  a  great  deal  of 
ingenuity,  for  Freud's  technical  terms  were  very  novel  at 


12  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  time  and  equivalents  had  to  be  coined  for  them  in 
English. 

Dr.  Smith  Ely  Jelliffe  of  New  York  City  has  made 
valuable  contributions  not  only  to  the  technique  of  the 
psychoanalytic  treatment  but  to  the  applications  of  the 
psychoanalytic  point  of  view  in  other  fields. 

He  has  suggested  a  new  method  for  handling  the  more 
dynamic  transference  situations  (see  Chapter  XIX) 
which  arise  in  dementia  praecox  and  the  manic-depressive 
psychoses.  In  collaboration  with  Louise  Brink  he  has 
published  a  study  on  "  The  Role  of  Animals  in  the  Un- 
conscious," outlining  a  new  method  for  the  understanding 
of  cultural  fossils  in  the  individual  unconscious  and  their 
recognition  when  used  as  symbols. 

He  has  developed  the  Freudian  conceptions  of  dis- 
placement and  conversion  which  he  considers  as  the  or- 
igin not  only  of  neuroses  but  of  certain  so-called  organic 
diseases.  The  technique  likely  to  deal  adequately  with 
such  conditions  must  follow,  he  thinks,  the  Freudian  for- 
mulas, although  he  considers  that  those  formulas  can  be 
improved  upon. 

His  studies  along  this  line  are  comprised  in  his  contri- 
butions on  "  Psoriasis  as  an  Hysterical  Conversion  Syn- 
drome "  and  "  Hypertension  Nephritis  and  its  Uncon- 
scious Psychogenic  Foundations." 

Finally,  Dr.  Jelliffe  has  occupied  himself  with  the  ques- 
tion of  mass  psychotherapy  and  the  part  played  by  the  ar- 
tist in  freeing  the  unconscious  of  the  population  and  thus 
helping  to  keep  the  masses  mentally  healthy.  He  has  an- 
alyzed from  that  point  of  view  many  plays  and  novels, 
such  as  "  Eyes  of  Youth,"  "  Peter  Ibbetson,"  *'  Dear 
Brutus,"  "  The  Willow  Tree,"  "  The  Yellow  Jacket," 


THE    HISTORY   OF   PSYCHOANALYTIC   RESEARCH       I3 

**  The  Jest,"  "  I,  Mary  MacLane."  He  has  in  prep- 
aration a  volume  on  Ibsen's  plays  treated  in  the  same 
manner. 

William  H.  White,  superintendent  of  Saint  Elizabeth 
Hospital,  Washington,  D.  C,  has  amplified  the  Adlerian 
doctrine  of  organ  inferiority  but  should  not  be  described 
as  an  Adlerian  in  the  narrow  sense  of  the  word.  His 
feeling  about  the  psychoanalytic  movement  is  that  it  has 
come  to  be  so  inclusive  that  there  is  plenty  of  room  for 
all  the  points  of  view  that  are  emphasized  by  the  different 
movements.  Each  one  of  the  movements  has  contributed 
something  valuable,  and  he  thinks  it  is  more  important 
to  see  the  value  of  each  contribution  than  to  become  im- 
mersed in  disputes  as  to  their  priority  or  relative  impor- 
tance. 

White's  personal  contribution  to  the  psychoanalytic 
movement  is  largely  along  the  lines  of  correlating  it  with 
fundamental  scientific  principles  as  exhibited  in  other 
branches  of  Ivnowledge.  He  has  done  this  in  his  "  Mech- 
anisms of  Character  Formation."  He  has  pointed  out, 
there  and  in  various  other  works,  that  the  principles  in- 
volved in  psychoanalysis  are  the  same  principles  which 
obtain  throughout  the  biological  sciences.  In  making 
this  correlation  he  has  examined  some  of  the  current  anti- 
thetical concepts,  such  as  mind  and  body,  individual  and 
environment,  functional  and  organic,  germ  plasm  and 
soma,  and  has  shown  that  those  concepts  have  become 
static  and  need  revaluation  in  order  to  be  useful  in  the 
present  stage  of  development.  He  has  shown  that  the 
distinctions  between  these  pairs  of  opposites  are  by  no 
means  as  rigid  as  has  heretofore  been  supposed,  and  that 
a  revaluation  of  these  concepts  which  tends  to  do  away 


14  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

with  the  clear-cut  distinctions  between  them,  makes  them 
more  useful,  more  fluid,  more  dynamic.  In  "  The  Dis- 
eases of  the  Nervous  System,"  written  in  collaboration 
with  Dr.  Smith  Ely  Jelllffe,  he  has  built  up  a  concept  of 
the  individual  as  a  biological  unit  with  reactions  at  the 
various  levels  and  shown  the  interrelations  of  these  sev- 
eral reacting  levels.  This  is  a  distinctly  new  note  in  neu- 
rology. 

Dr.  Edward  J.  Kempf,  of  Washington,  D.  C,  sub- 
scribes to  Freud's  view  of  the  influence  exerted  upon  the 
personality  by  repressed  wishes,  and  to  Freud's  inference 
that  the  wishes  which  cause,  directly  or  indirectly,  most, 
if  not  all,  pathological  adaptations,  are  essentially  sexual. 
But  he  rejects  Freud's  theory  of  the  "  conversion  "  of 
libido,  or  what  is  being  termed  "  psychic  energy,"  into 
physiological  or  physical  derangements.  He  follows  the 
James-Lange  theory  of  the  peripheral  origin  of  the  emo- 
tions in  the  sense  organs  of  the  visceral  and  circulatory 
systems.  We  are  compelled  to  think  with  our  muscles 
by  our  cravings  as  they  seek  for  appropriate  stimuli. 
Wishes  and  cravings  continue  active  until  they  are  neu- 
tralized through  acquiring  appropriate  counterstimula- 
tion.  The  repressed  wish  flows  from  the  heightened  pos- 
tural tension  of  the  segment  in  which  it  had  its  origin. 
The  segment  becomes  conditioned  through  years  of  expe- 
riences to  seek  relatively  well-defined  types  of  stimuli 
which  alone  have  the  capacity  to  neutralize  (satisfy)  the 
craving.  When  these  conditioned  needs  happen  to  be  ta- 
booed by  society  as  unjust,  asocial  or  perverse,  or  are  un- 
obtainable, the  foundation  of  the  neurotic  or  psychotic 
personality  is  established. 

Kempf's  book,  "  The  Autonomic  Functions  of  the  Per- 


THE    HISTORY   OF    PSYCHOANALYTIC   RESEARCH      1 5 

sonality,"  opens  a  new  chapter  in  the  psychology  of  the 
emotions  and  the  part  they  play  in  the  personality  make- 
up of  the  individual.  It  strikes  a  note  distinctly  in  ad- 
vance of  Adler's  theory  of  organ  inferiority,  but  like 
that  theory  founds  character  traits  in  definitely  located 
neuro-physiological  processes.  Recent  advances  in  the 
anatomical  and  physiological  knowledge  of  the  autonomic 
nervous  system  and  its  relations  to  the  glands  and  the 
visceral  and  somatic  musculature  have  made  his  work 
possible. 

Kempf  sees  in  the  autonomic  nervous  system  the  prim- 
itive means  for  recording  the  inherent  cravings  —  or- 
ganic needs  —  of  the  individual  and  in  the  cerebro-spinal 
or  projicient  nervous  system  the  means  for  so  relating 
the  organism  to  its  environment  as  to  secure  a  neutraliza- 
tion of  these  needs  —  a  satisfaction  of  its  cravings. 
From  this  point  of  view  the  familiar  psychoanalytic  prob- 
lems of  the  conflict,  repression,  and  the  unconscious  re- 
ceive a  new  interpretation  in  anatomo-physiologlcal 
terms.  The  energy  of  the  repression  is  seen  as  bound  up 
in  visceral  tonicities  and  postural  tensions  and  a  distinctly 
new  viewpoint  Is  opened  up  for  a  consideration  of  many 
obscure  visceral  and  neuro-psychlatric  problems. 

Kempf  has  suggested  a  new  classification  of  mental 
disturbances  which  will  be  presented  In  detail  in  Chapter 
XV. 

There  are  several  periodicals,  most  of  them  in  the 
German  language,  devoted  to  psychoanalysis. 

To  the  "  Jahrbuch  fiir  Psychoanalytlsche  und  Psycho- 
pathologlsche  Forschungen  "  and  the  "  Zentralblatt  fiir 
Psychoanalyse  "  which  I  mentioned  above,  I  shall  add 
"  Imago,"  a  bi-monthly  founded  by  Freud  in  19 12,  edited 


1 6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

by  O.  Rank  and  H.  Sachs,  and  containing  among  other 
things  extensive  bibliographies  of  studies  on  the  apphca- 
tion  of  psychoanalysis  to  the  mental  sciences. 

In  January,  1913,  the  "Internationale  Zeitschrift  fiir 
Aerztliche  Psychoanalyse  "  was  founded  by  Freud  and 
edited  by  S.  Ferenczi  and  O.  Rank.  It  covers  the  same 
field  as  the  Zentralblatt  which  later  it  replaced.  Besides 
this,  Freud  publishes  at  varying  intervals  monographs 
entitled  "  Freud's  Schriften  zur  angewandten  Seelen- 
kunde." 

Adler  and  Fortmiiller  founded  in  1913  the  "Zeit- 
schrift fiir  Individuale  Psychologic  "  which  presents  the 
views  of  the  Adlerian  school.  Adler  is  the  editor  of  a 
monograph  series  entitled  "  Schriften  des  Vereins  fiir 
freie  Psychoanalytische  Forschung." 

The  only  Journal  published  in  English  is  the  "  Psycho- 
analytic Review,"  which  aims  to  be  catholic  in  its  ten- 
dencies, a  faithful  mirror  of  the  psychoanalytic  movement 
and  to  represent  no  schisms  or  schools  but  a  free  forum 
for  all. 

It  contains  besides  original  articles,  a  very  extensive 
digest  of  all  the  periodical  literature.  It  is  edited  by 
Dr.  William  A.  White  and  Dr.  Smith  Ely  Jelliffe,  and  is 
now  In  its  sixth  year. 

The  "  Journal  of  Nervous  and  Mental  Disease  "  and 
the  "  Nervous  and  Mental  Disease  Monographs  "  have 
also  supplied  the  English  reading  public  with  many  special 
psychoanalytic  studies. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    UNCONSCIOUS   AND   THE    URGES 

Psychoanalysis  is  not  a  panacea  for  all  mental  ills. 
It  is  much  less  and  much  more  than  that.  It  attempts 
to  rectify  but  few  mental  abnormalities.  At  the  same 
time,  psychoanalytic  information,  if  widely  disseminated 
would  probably  prevent  every  mental  disturbance  which 
is  not  the  result  of  temporary  or  permanent  organic  de- 
terioration, but  which  is  psychogenic,  that  is,  due  to 
purely  unconscious  causes. 

For  psychoanalysis  is  not  merely  a  new  theory  of  the 
unconscious;  it  is  a  practical  method  of  studying  the  un- 
conscious. Matter-of-fact  minds  manifest  a  justified  im- 
patience when  encountering  the  countless  hypotheses  and 
definitions  offered  by  academic  psychologists.  Defining 
the  unconscious,  the  foreconscious  and  the  subconscious, 
dilating  on  the  relative  merits  of  the  terms  consciousness 
and  awareness,  is  a  most  barren  form  of  mental  gymnas- 
tics. 

Bergson's  vital  urge  is  an  interesting  conceit,  as  long 
as  we  do  not  care  to  know  its  origin  or  its  goal;  his 
theory  of  dreams  is  plausible  but  we  should  not  seek  in 
it  a  solution  for  the  riddle  of  our  sleeping  fantasies.  His 
distinction  between  thoughts  that  float  on  the  surface  of 
our  consciousness  like  dead  leaves  on  a  pool  and  those 
that,  like  unto  rain  drops,  merge  immediately  with  the 
rest  of  our  mental  acquisitions,  supplies  the  reader  with 


1 8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

pretty  images;  and  so  do  his  statements  about  ideas 
knocking  at  the  portals  of  consciousness.  Those  pleas- 
antly worded  assertions,  however,  are  unilluminating  to 
the  student  of  real  life.  They  have  no  practical  applica- 
tion in  the  life  of  the  average  human  being. 

Psychoanalysis  will  supersede  entirely  the  guesswork 
of  academic  psychologists,  bent  on  generalizing  about 
character,  tendencies,  instincts.  Psychoanalysis  is  not  in- 
terested in  mental  states  as  such;  it  aims  at  tracing  their 
origin  and  at  bringing  about  their  removal  when  they 
prove  harmful  to  the  individual. 

It  seeks  to  direct  into  useful  channels  mental  activities 
which  are  a  dangerous  or  a  wasteful  display  of  energy. 
It  searches  the  unconscious,  not  for  literary  illustrations 
and  similes,  but  for  positive,  scientific,  practical  informa- 
tion concerning  the  operations  of  the  mind. 

Before  Freud  began  his  experiments,  the  unconscious 
had  been  regarded  as  the  province  of  the  theoretical  psy- 
chologists who  simply  filled  it  with  their  own  personal 
fancies,  then  took  those  fancies  out,  one  by  one,  and 
described  them  to  us.  Practical  men  sneered  at  the 
word  "  unconscious  "  and  ignored  the  possibilities  which 
its  study  held  out  for  many  sciences. 

Our  unconscious  is  a  tremendous  storage-plant  full  of 
potential  energy  which  can  be  expended  for  beneficial  or 
harmful  ends.  Like  every  apparatus  for  storing  up 
power,  it  can  be  man's  most  precious  ally,  if  man  is 
familiar  with  it  and,  hence,  not  afraid  of  it.  Ignorance 
and  fear,  on  the  other  hand,  can  transform  a  live  electric 
wire  into  an  engine  of  destruction  and  death. 

Many  indeed  are  the  mental  disturbances  which  are 
due  to  some  fear,  induced  in  its  turn  by  lack  of  under- 


THE    UNCONSCIOUS   AND   THE    URGES  I9 

standing  of  some  perfectly  simple  unconscious  process. 

Let  us  illustrate  our  meaning:  A  noise  wakes  us  up 
at  night.  The  darkness,  the  half  stupor  out  of  which  we 
are  painfully  struggling,  conspire  to  exaggerate  the  sound 
we  have  perceived  and  to  endow  It  with  a  sinister  Import. 
Our  heart  beats  wildly,  our  breathing  Is  impeded,  we  may 
perspire  profusely,  we"  may  be  even  too  weak  to  move 
a  limb.  We  press  the  switch,  we  flood  the  room  with 
light  and  behold:  a  very  small  mouse  was  trying  to  drag 
a  nut  shell  into  his  hole.  As  soon  as  we  establish  a 
direct  connection  between  the  insignificant  cause  and  the 
sinister  effect,  the  effect  shrinks  to  the  size  of  Its  cause; 
the  anxiety  which  a  minute  ago  tortured  us  appears  to  us 
preposterous.  That  mouse  may  wake  us  up  again,  but 
we  shall  not  go  Into  a  cold  sweat  on  Its  account.  We 
shall  get  a  cat  or  buy  a  trap  or  seal  up  the  mouse  hole. 

Roughly  speaking,  the  task  of  the  analyst  consists  In 
helping  the  patient  to  trace  a  certain  mental  anxiety 
which  Is  assuming  an  exaggerated  Importance  to  Its  actual 
cause,  which,  nine  times  out  of  ten.  Is  as  insignificant  as 
a  small  mouse,  and,  in  making  him  laugh  over  the  Incon--"' 
gruous  disproportion  between  the  minute  cause  and  Its 
gigantic  effect,  after  which,  analyst  and  patient  can  con- 
sult with  each  other  as  to  whether  a  cat  or  a  trap  will 
be  best  to  prevent  further  disturbances  of  the  peace. 

In  other  words,  we  shall  not  treat  the  patient  for  heart 
trouble,  difficulty  in  breathing  or  weakness  of  the  limbs, 
unless  we  have  made  sure  that  there  was  no  mouse  in 
the  room.  We  shall  throw  a  flood  of  light  into  the  room 
and  locate  the  mouse  or  at  least  Its  hiding-place. 

Old  fashioned  medicine  was  too  frequently  guilty  of 
the  sin  with  which  we  have  charged  academic  phlloso- 


20  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

phers.     It  too  often  took  a  label  for  an  explanation. 

A  young  woman  may  be  taken  sick  with  vomiting  fits. 
Nothing  she  ate  seems  responsible  for  that  gastric  dis- 
turbance. No  physiological  condition,  such  as  preg- 
nancy, can  be  invoked  as  a  cause.  The  family  physician 
gravely  diagnoses  "  hysterical  vomiting." 

A  child  goes  to  school  and  is  affected  in  the  same  way 
without  any  apparent  cause.  He  is  sent  home  and  the 
trouble  diagnosed  as  "  school  nausea." 

In  other  words,  people  who  vomit  without  any  physio- 
logical reason  can  be  said  to  be  suffering  from  "  hyster- 
ical "  or  "  school  "  vomiting.  And,  inversely,  "  hyster- 
ical vomiting  "  or  "  school  nausea  "  are  conditions  In 
which  people  vomit  without  any  apparent  cause;  which  is 
extremely  illuminating  and  helpful. 

Ascribing  a  name  to  such  symptoms  and  prescribing 
a  tonic  will  not  prevent  the  mysterious  symptoms  from 
reappearing  or  becoming  habitual.  Analyzing  the 
trouble  on  the  other  hand  according  to  the  methods  de- 
vised by  Freud,  Jung,  Adler,  Jelliffe,  White  and  Kempf, 
will  bring  to  the  patient's  consciousness  the  unconscious 
forces  which  produced  the  disturbance. 

When  both  woman  and  child  are  made  to  realize  th^t 
they  may  have  harbored  a  grudge  against  a  husband  or 
a  teacher  who  did  not  respond  to  their  craving  for  atten- 
tion, and  in  a  morbid  way  forced  their  environment  to 
offer  them  compensation  for  that  slight,  they  may  take 
a  saner  view  of  their  trouble.  Some  simple  readjustment 
may  be  suggested  in  both  cases. 

The  vomiting  woman  and  child  were  the  victims  of 
their  unconscious.  Something,  of  which  they  were  not 
aware,  compelled  them  to  perform  actions  of  a  distriess- 


THE   UNCONSCIOUS   AND  THE    URGES  21 

ing  nature.  They  were  like  a  subject  to  whom  a  hypno- 
tizer  has  given  a  command,  for  instance,  to  arise  at  five 
o'clock  and  then  go  and  knock  at  some  one's  door.  The 
subject  will  carry  out  the  command  but  will  not  remember 
the  hypnotic  scene  and  will  substitute  for  the  command, 
which  has  become  unconscious,  some  perfectly  plausible 
reason  for  performing  the  acts  prescribed  by  the  hypno- 
tist. 

On  the  other  hand  when  the  memory  of  the  hypnotic 
scene  is  re-awakened,  as  Liebault  and  Bernheim  have 
shown  can  be  done,  the  subject  readily  realizes  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  excellent  reasons  he  gave  for  his  peculiar 
behavior. 

Our  woman  and  child  suffering  from  nausea  would  in 
all  likelihood  assure  us  that  the  heat  or  something  they 
ate,  saw  or  heard,  had  distressed  them.  The  hypnotized 
subject  would  tell  us  that  he  heard  moans  in  the  other 
person's  room  and  was  trying  to  offer  help,  or  some 
other  story  of  the  same  type.  And  all  of  them  would 
be  perfectly  sincere.  Their  fabrications  would  be  purely 
unconscious  and  no  one  would  be  justified  in  impeaching 
their  good  faith. 

They  would  tell  us  what  they  were  conscious  of,  but 
their  behavior  would  be  prompted  by  psychic  forces  of 
which  they  are  unconscious. 

Our  unconscious  can  be  described  as  the  sum  of  all 
the  experiences  of  our  life.  Some  can  be  readily  made 
conscious,  are  easily  recalled,  and  are  constantly  at  our 
disposal;  some  have  been  apparently  forgotten,  and  can- 
not be  brought  easily  to  consciousness,  except  through 
special  efforts,  either  because  they  were  too  trifling,  or 
because  their  unpleasant  or  painful  character  caused  them 


22  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

to  be  repressed  and  to  sink,  so  to  speak,  to  the  bottom  of 
our  unconscious. 

We  discover  the  presence  of  some  of  those  repressed 
ideas  only  through  the  disturbances  they  may  produce, 
even  as  astronomers  sometimes  discover  the  existence  of 
an  unseen  planet  by  observing  the  influence  it  has  on  the 
course  of  other  celestial  bodies. 

The  unconscious  has  been  likened  by  Stanley  Hall  to 
an  iceberg  which  proceeds  on  its  voyage  regardless  of  the 
direction  of  the  wind.  Most  of  the  berg,  hov/ever,  is 
hidden  under  the  surface  and  it  is  by  powerful  currents, 
invisible  to  the  casual  observer,  and  not  by  the  wind,  that 
the  mass  of  floating  ice  is  being  driven  irresistibly  toward 
its  goal. 

Many  of  the  ideas,  desires,  cravings,  which  we  have 
repressed  in  the  course  of  our  life,  for  the  reason  that 
they  did  not  fit  in  with  the  environment  in  which  we 
were  born,  continue  to  live  a  life  of  their  own  in  our  un- 
conscious mind.  For  nothing  in  human  nature  can  be 
suppressed  or  annihilated.  Those  unconscious  ideas 
which  at  times  exert  a  mysterious  influence  upon  our  con- 
duct and  upon  our  mental  and  physical  health,  have  been 
designated  by  psychoanalysts  as  complexes.  Interrelated 
groups  of  complexes  are  called  constellations  of  com- 
plexes. 

Those  complexes,  which  represent  points  of  collision 
between  a  vital  urge  and  the  ruthless  world  of  reality,  act 
much  like  steam  in  a  boiler.  They  constantly  seek  an 
outlet.  If  the  boiler  is  strong  and  supplied  with  a  good 
safety-valve,  no  explosion  will  take  place.  If  the  human 
specimen  is  healthy,  without  organic  defects  and  can  in- 
dulge in  a  reasonable  amount  of  pleasurable  activity,  no 


THE   UNCONSCIOUS   AND  THE    URGES  23 

mental  or  physical  disturbance  may  take  place.  Given 
a  certain  weakness  somewhere,  with  no  mental  or  physi- 
cal safety-valve,  and  the  repressed  urges  may  assert  them- 
selves through  a  neurosis,  a  psychoneurosis,  a  psychosis  or 
a  perversion,  converting  themselves  at  times  into  strange 
physical  symptoms,  which  do  not  seem  traceable  to  any) 
apparent  physical  cause. 

What  are  then  the  elements  which  seek  an  outlet  and 
through  what  mechanism  are  they  repressed? 

There  is  in  man  something  which  for  lack  of  a  better 
word  we  would  designate  after  Bergson  as  the  "  vital 
urge  "  and  which  operates  in  three  directions. 

Man  must  be  fed  and  hence  impelled  by  a  certain  urge 
to  seek  sufficient  food.  He  must  be  impelled  by  some 
urge  to  perpetuate  his  species.  He  must  avoid  encoun- 
ters with  harmful  stimuli. 

We  may  then  speak  of  a  nutrition  urge,  of  a  sex  urge 
and  of  .  safety  urge.  The  normal  satisfaction  of  those 
three  urg-es  is  always  accompanied  by  a  feeling  of  pleas- 
ure or,  at  least,  of  well  being.  Their  denial  is  always 
accompanied  by  a  feeling  of  displeasure  or  discomfort. 

The  three  urges  have  been  greatly  developed  by  civil- 
ization and  partake  of  its  complexity.  Desire  for  food 
awakened  in  man  a  desire  to  extend  his  domination  over 
a  certain  territory  from  which  he  derived  his  food  supply 
and  to  drive  away  from  It  other  individuals  when  he 
could  not  extend  his  domination  over  them.  The  will-to- 
power  was  born.  That  will-to-power,  gratified  or  un- 
gratlfied,  became  a  source  of  egotism.  The  ego,  weak 
in  the  animals,  became  extraordinary  powerful  in  man. 
Animals  are  static,  man  seeks  constantly  a  higher  level. 

The  nutrltion-power-ego  urge  may  be  located  in  the 


24  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

cranial  division  of  the  autonomic  nervous  system  whose 
function  is  the  upbuilding  of  the  body  (the  vagus  nerve 
causes  saliva  and  gastric  juice  to  flow,  slows  down  the 
heart  and  activates  intestinal  peristalsis). 

The  sex  urge  is  still  connected  nervously  with  the  func- 
tion of  voiding  the  urine  and  feces  as  it  was  anatomically 
in  primitive  animals.  It  might  be  designated  as  the  sex- 
excretion  urge  and  located  in  the  sacral  division  of  the 
autonomic  nervous  system  which  regulates  the  bladder, 
rectum  and  genitals. 

The  safety  urge  is  located  in  the  sympathetic  or  thorac- 
ico-lumbar  division  of  the  autonomic  nervous  system 
whose  fibers  extend  all  over  the  organism  and  which  at 
every  point  balances  and  opposes  the  specific  action  of  the 
cranial  and  sacral  divisions. 

In  emergencies  the  sympathetic  fibers  stop  the  flow 
of  saliva  and  of  gastric  juice,  release  sugar  from  the  liver, 
cause  the  heart  to  beat  faster  and  interrupt  sexual  ac- 
tivities, thus  stopping  all  display  of  energy  which  is  not 
directly  necessary  in  a  struggle  and  supplying  more  en- 
ergy to  the  skeletal  muscles. 

In  the  normal  individual,  the  safety  urge  preserves  the 
organic  equilibrium,  only  overthrowing  the  ego  and  sex 
urge  when  a  specific  danger  has  to  be  warded  off. 

The  realm  of  the  urges  is  both  mental  and  physical: 
the  self-protection  urge  will  ward  us  against  a  fall  and 
against  speaking  the  wrong  word,  the  ego-power  urge  will 
prompt  us  to  lie  about  our  social  standing  or  to  assault  a 
possible  rival. 

The  self-protection  urge  is  so  important  that  whenever 
it  appears  to  be  deficient  in  an  individual,  that  individual 
is  taken  in  hand  by  society.     Anyone  exposing  himself 


THE   UNCONSCIOUS   AND  THE    URGES  2^ 

uselessly  to  danger  or  death  Is  soon  restrained  by  the 
authorities. 

As  Kempf  says,  "  The  whole  question  of  the  Individ- 
ual's successful  struggle  for  life  depends  upon  what  stim- 
uli In  the  environment  cause  fear  reactions  in  the  auton- 
omic apparatus."  The  fear  of  danger  and  the  craving 
for  self-protection  In  animals  are  not  entirely  instinctive 
but  partly  acquired.  Hunters  entering  virgin  territories 
can  approach  game  without  precautions  or  concealment; 
the  young  of  many  animals  which  In  their  adult  state 
carefully  avoid  man's  nearness,  are  often  unafraid  and 
lend  themselves  to  painless  handling,  unless  imitation  of 
their  panicky  elders  compels  them  to  go  through  flight 
motions. 

Kempf  tells  the  following  Incident,  illustrating  the 
workings  of  the  self-protection  urge  and  Its  unconscious 
character:  "  I  well  remember  an  experience  while  walk- 
ing across  a  field.  As  my  foot  was  descending  In  the 
stride,  a  partly  coiled  something  caught  my  eye,  lying 
very  near  the  place  where  the  foot  was  to  touch  the 
ground.  Instantly  the  leg  supporting  the  body  reflexly 
projected  It  onward  and  the  foot  which  had  descended  too 
far  to  be  retracted  was  extended  out  of  danger  by  a 
movement  which  started  as  a  step  but  terminated  In  a 
leap.  Painful  visceral  reactions  seem  to  have  started  be- 
fore the  perception  of  a  snake  was  formed.  The  auton- 
omic reflex  activities  are  quicker  than  perception." 

The  sex  urge  and  the  ego  urge  are  far  from  being  as 
necessary  for  the  individual's  survival  as  the  self-protec- 
tion and  nutrition  urge.  Society  affects  to  ignore  their 
existence  and  in  certain  cases  denies  It  entirely.  While 
a  prisoner  is  kept  forcibly  alive  and  is  not  allowed  to 


26  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

commit  suicide  or  to  injure  himself  physically,  no  gratifi- 
cation is  vouchsafed  to  his  sexual  desires  or  any  other 
craving  for  pleasure,  and  his  personality  disappears,  his 
name  being  replaced  by  a  number;  he  is  shorn  of  all 
power  over  himself  and  others;  his  opinion  on  any  sub- 
ject is  completely  disregarded. 

The  sex  urge  has  been  designated  by  Freud  as  the 
sexual  libido,  a  term  which  unless  carefully  explained 
leads  to  many  misunderstandings.  In  the  Freudian  sense 
of  the  word,  sexual  must  not  be  considered  as  synonymous 
with  genital,  but  includes  all  the  pleasurable  physical 
activities  which  in  the  infant  resemble  the  primary  and 
secondary  sexual  activities  of  the  adult,  and  include  prim- 
itive infantile  suggestions  of  later  perversions,  all  ac-tiv- 
ities  which  Freud  has  grouped  under  the  rubric  of  "  poly- 
morphous perverse  activities  "  and  which  at  puberty  are 
clearly  differentiated  into  genital  and  nongenital  activi- 
ties. 

It  may  be  said  that  in  a  general  way  the  conscious  aim 
of  this  urge  is  physical  pleasure,  its  unconscious  aim  pro- 
creation. 

The  ego  urge  constitutes  the  main  difference  between 
man  and  the  animals.  Animals,  as  I  said  before,  are 
static.  Beavers  erect  their  dams  and  bees  build  their 
combs  according  to  formulas  which  do  not  seem  to  have 
changed  through  the  ages  and  which  are  not,  judging 
from  the  observations  made  during  several  centuries, 
likely  to  change  considerably  in  the  near  future. 

Man,  on  the  contrary,  is  constantly  modifying  his 
formulas.  He  is  constantly  Inventing  new  devices.  Ani- 
mals either  adapt  themselves  to  their  environment  and  sur- 
vive,  or  fail   to   adapt   themselves   and  die   off.     Man 


THE   UNCONSCIOUS   AND  THE    URGES  2% 

adapts  his  environment  to  his  needs.  Primitive  man 
first  wall^ed,  then  he  tamed  various  animals  available  as 
mounts,  then  hitched  vehicles  to  them,  then  substituted 
steam  and,  later,  electricity  for  horse  or  ox  power,  then 
soared  helplessly  above  the  earth,  then  developed  as  much 
freedom  and  more  speed  in  the  air  than  on  the  surface  of 
the  earth.  The  ego  urge  is  a  source  of  restlessness,  dis- 
content and  ambition,  creating  desire  to  reach  a  new 
level,  preferably  a  higher  one. 

While  the  Freudian  school  has  attributed  an  extreme 
importance  to  sex,  an  observation  made  frequently  by 
Lombroso  would  suggest  that  the  ego  urge  was  more 
stubborn  in  its  striving  for  expression  than  the  sex  urge. 
Hypnotized  subjects  can  be  made  to  accept  the  suggestion 
that  their  sex  has  been  changed;  men  readily  accept  the 
fiction  that  they  are  women.  Men  and  women  on  the 
other  hand  will  resist  stubbornly  the  suggestion  that  their 
social  status  has  been  diminished  and  the  resistance  they 
present  to  the  hypnotizer  who  tries  to  make  them  play  a 
menial  or  humiliating  role  generally  leads  to  their  awak- 
ening. The  yellow  press,  in  its  efforts  to  appeal  to  the 
multitude,  fills  its  columns  with  news  which  gratifies  the 
disparaging  instincts  of  its  readers,  murders,  scandals, 
stories  of  deceit  and  dishonesty,  all  of  which  by  display- 
ing other  people's  inferiority,  flatter  the  readers'  ego. 
Any  moral  weakness  exhibited  by  the  powerful  and 
wealthy  lends  itself  to  screaming  headlines. 

The  ego  urge  permeates  every  relation  of  life,  even 
the  purely  sexual  relations.  "  The  test  of  real  love,"  Ad- 
ler  says,  "  would  be  the  fact  that  the  loved  person  would 
be  allowed  to  preserve  his  or  her  personality.  The  aver- 
age love  relation,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  more  pleasant 


28  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

to  each  partner  as  one  of  them  seems  to  sacrifice  some  of 
his  personal  worth,  thus  increasing  the  personal  worth  of 
the  other.  There  is  a  continuous  tendency  to  put  one's 
I'^ve  partner  to  some  tests  and  possibly  to  humiliate  him 
or  her  slightly  thereby.  Then  jealousy  comes  into  play, 
revealing  the  desire  of  the  jealous  partner  to  monopolize 
the  object  of  his  love,  and  in  a  measure  pleasing  the  sus- 
pected person,  as  being  an  evidence  of  his  or  her  worth 
and  attraction  to  others." 

We  must  always  bear  in  mind  that  the  three  main 
urges,  like  all  human  phenomena,  are  closely  related  and 
can  never  be  considered  as  absolute  entities.  Sucking  the 
mother's  nipple  which  in  the  infant  is  primarily  an  activ- 
ity meant  to  secure  food,  develops  into  a  semi-sexual  ac- 
tivity totally  unrelated  to  nutrition  and  from  which  kiss- 
ing originates.  The  physical  pleasure  a  Don  Juan  de- 
rives from  a  new  conquest  increases  his  egotism  and  his 
sense  of  power;  and  reciprocally  Don  Juan's  newly  ac- 
quired sense  of  power  and  Increased  egotism,  revealed 
by  certain  attitudes,  postures,  buoyancy,  mental  and  phys- 
ical may  increase  his  sexual  pleasures  by  vouchsafing  him 
new  conquests,  etc.  A  great  egotist  may  be  so  filled  with 
a  sense  of  his  importance  that  he  will  desire  an  increase 
in  protection  commensurate  with  the  growth  of  his  real 
or  imaginary  power,  etc. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    REPRESSION    OF   THE    URGES 

A  HUMAN  couple  placed  alone  on  the  earth,  supplied 
with  plenty  of  food  and  surrounded  by  a  harmless  fauna, 
would  not  have  to  repress  many  of  their  urges.  They 
could  avoid  collisions  with  obstacles,  falls  from  elevated 
points  or  into  pits,  the  broiling  sun  or  the  chilling  rain, 
satisfy  without  reservation  their  various  cravings  for 
pleasure,  rule  despotically  over  their  environment,  and  as 
long  as  desire  made  them  the  two  incomplete  halves  of  a 
human  unit,  they  could  live  on  without  severe  strife. 

In  other  words  such  a  couple  in  such  an  environment, 
Adam  and  Eve  in  an  earthly  paradise,  could  thrive  with- 
out developing  their  sense  of  reality.  As  soon  as  a  bil- 
lion or  more  human  beings  must  disport  themselves  on 
the  surface  of  the  same  planet,  conditions  change  entirely. 
Collisions  between  moving  objects  are  less  avoidable  than 
collisions  between  a  moving  object,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
a  motionless  obstacle  on  the  other;  proprietary  interest  of 
the  male  in  one  female  and  of  one  female  in  one  male, 
and  the  unsynchronized  manifestations  of  pleasure  crav- 
ings in  variously  constituted  individuals  prevent  the  un- 
regulated expression  and  gratification  of  desire  on  the 
part  of  individuals  and  couples;  no  one  couple  can  any 
longer  tyrannize  over  the  earth.  Every  individual  and 
every  couple  must  develop  a  keen  sense  of  reality  or  come 

to  grief,  physically  or  mentally. 

29 


30  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

The  acquisitfon  of  a  sense  of  reality  is  a  slow  process  in 
the  life  of  the  individual.  For  heredity  does  not  seem  to 
carry  that  characteristic  from  generation  to  generation. 
Reality  is  the  enemy  against  which  we  struggle  all  our 
life,  trying  all  the  while  to  minimize  the  harm  it  may 
inflict  upon  us.  The  compromise  which  most  of  us  fin- 
ally reach  with  reality  is  at  best  a  shaky  arrangement 
which  has  to  be  revised  frequently.  In  that  struggle  the 
strongest  and  the  weakest  go  down  in  defeat. 

The  struggle  begins  early  in  life.  Before  birth  the  hu- 
man being  finds  itself  in  a  state  of  unconditional  omnipo- 
tence, to  use  Ferenczi's  words.  The  inimical  outer  world 
exists  only  in  a  very  restricted  degree;  only  light  and 
sound  sensations  penetrate  the  mother's  body;  all  of  the 
child's  needs  for  protection,  warmth  and  nourishment  are 
assured  by  the  mother;  oxygen  and  food  are  brought  di- 
rectly into  its  blood  vessels.  The  foetus  is  omnipotent, 
for  it  has  everything  it  needs  without  even  wishing  for  it. 
As  mind  and  memory  probably  begin  to  function  before 
birth,  the  human  being's  revolt  against  restriction,  its 
ideas  of  megalomania,  the  latter  being  the  more  irresist- 
ible as  the  human  being  reverts  more  completely  to  an 
infantile  level,  are  seen  to  be  promptings  of  the  ego  urge 
which  undoubtedly  develops  long  before  any  other. 

The  stage  which  the  child  traverses  after  birth  is  desig- 
nated by  Ferenczi  as  the  period  of  magic-hallucinatory 
omnipotence. 

The  child  has  wishes  and  as  soon  as  it  has  them  the 
nurse  knows  those  wishes  and  proceeds  to  satisfy  them 
at  once.  After  the  first  nursing,  the  child's  anger  at  its 
first  contact  with  the  hostile  outer  world  and  its  resultant 
loss  of  power,  is  quieted  and  the  child  goes  to  sleep,  re- 


THE   REPRESSION   OF   THE    URGES  3 1 

verting  more  or  less  completely  to  the  womb  condition. 
Having  no  knowledge  of  the  concatenation  of  cause  and 
effect,  or  of  the  nurse's  existence,  the  child  feels  itself 
obscurely  in  the  possession  of  a  magic  capacity  which  can 
realize  its  wishes  through  the  mere  imagination  of  their- 
satisfaction. 

Gradually  the  child  begins  to  suspect  the  existence  of 
reality,  and  to  differentiate  between  the  "  I  "  and  the 
"  Not  I."  The  complexity  of  wishes  increases.  They 
soon  require  signals  to  be  understood  by  the  environment. 
The  infant  that  wants  to  be  fed,  imitates  the  motions  of 
sucking,  it  stretches  out  its  hands  for  the  objects  it  wants. 
The  child  develops  a  system  of  signals,  a  gesture-language 
which  is  well  understood  by  the  environment.  The  infant 
is  still  omnipotent.  This  is  the  period  of  omnipotence  by 
the  help  of  magic  gestures.  Later  the  infant  learns  the 
code  signals,  silent  or  spoken,  in  use  in  its  environment,  it 
expresses  its  needs  in  the  current  vernacular  and  those 
needs  are  generally  satisfied  as  soon  as  they  are  expressed 
and  perceived  by  its  environment.  This  is  the  period  of 
almost  complete  omnipotence  through  magic  words. 

We  see  how  mental  deterioration  corresponds  to  those 
four  grades  of  infantilism.  The  hopeless  paranoiac,  who 
has  reverted  to  the  first  period  of  infancy,  feels  himself 
pmnipotent;  in  a  less  advanced  degree  of  deterioration  he 
|Tiay  fulfill  his  wishes  through  hallucinations,  like  the  in- 
fant in  his  second  stage ;  the  savage  or  the  childlike  man 
fjelieves  in  magic  gestures,  casting  off  the  evil  eye,  sprin- 
kling the  ground  to  bring  rain,  etc.;  finally  the  super- 
stitious individual  trusts  in  certain  formulas,  prayers,  in- 
cantations, magic  numbers,  curses,  etc. 

The  fourth  period  in  the  infant's  life  brings  the  first 


32  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

feeling  of  inferiority.  Reality  must  henceforth  be  reck- 
oned with.  Childhood  begins.  The  barriers  which  sur- 
round the  child  assume  more  and  more  consistency.  At 
first  they  were  the  caressing  hands  of  a  loving  mother. 
They  end  by  becoming  steel  walls.  Movable  at  first, 
they  will,  in  later  life,  assume  an  unchangeable  position, 
allowing  the  individual  little  freedom  of  motion  except 
in  certain  definite  directions. 

The  repression  of  all  the  urges  begins. 

The  infant  was  first  supplied  with  liquid  food  at  the 
proper  temperature  which  could  be  assimilated  without 
any  exertion;  later  with  foods  of  pleasant  taste  and  of 
little  consistency.  It  enjoyed  all  the  imaginable  pleas- 
ures, plenty  of  sleep,  the  absence  of  harmful  sights  or 
sounds,  absolute  freedom  to  exert  its  lungs  at  any  time, 
day  or  night,  and  to  satisfy  physical  needs  at  any  time  or 
place.  It  could  display  its  body  without  clothing,  indulge 
in  all  sorts  of  muscular  activities,  satisfy  its  curiosity  as 
to  its  own  or  some  one  else's  body;  it  had  the  pleasant 
feeling  of  being  constantly  a  center  of  attention  and  in- 
terest and  an  object  of  affection. 

When  the  infant  becomes  a  child,  most  of  his  liberties 
are  taken  away.  He  must  wear  clothes  and  keep  them 
on  during  the  day;  he  must  partake  of  certain  foods  which 
are  not  necessarily  pleasant,  which  present  a  sometimes 
disagreeable  consistency  and  must  be  handled  with  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  skill.  Instead  of  cooing,  howling  or  sing- 
ing whenever  he  pleases,  the  child  discovers  conversation, 
which  consists  in  waiting  until  some  other  person  stops 
making  vocal  noises  before  we  can  produce  some  our- 
selves.    He  must  observe  a  thousand  rules  of  "  decency." 


THE   REPRESSION   OF   THE    URGES  33 

The  **  Not  I  "  appears  monstrously  developed  In  com- 
parison with  the  "  I." 

All  the  statements  made  by  poets  and  fiction  writers  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding,  childhood  is  probably  the 
most  painful  period  of  our  life.  There  takes  place  a 
terrific  transformation  of  values  which  makes  a  misde- 
meanor of  many  an  action  which  in  the  infant  was  praise- 
worthy. The  fluctuation  of  standards  at  that  age  is 
harrowing.  In  certain  respects  the  child  must  be  a 
grown-up,  in  others  an  infant.  He  must  respect  the 
truth  and  yet  many  of  his  troubles  come  from  the  fact 
that  he  has  not  acquired  as  yet  the  hypocrisy  whereby  he 
shall  conceal  his  displeasure  or  hostility  or  express  con- 
ventional pleasure  and  sympathy. 

The  activities  which  Freud  has  designated  as  "  poly- 
morphous perverse  "  must  be  completely  repressed  when 
childhood  begins  and  remain  repressed  or,  at  least,  un- 
mentioned  and  unnoticed  until  puberty.  The  infant,  first 
interested  in  its  own  body,  develops  what  is  called  '*  nar- 
cism."  Curiosity  of  a  justifiable  character  about  the 
most  Important  parts  of  that  body,  the  mouth  and  the 
excretory  outlets,  leads  the  child  to  put  into  its  mouth 
every  object  it  comes  in  contact  with  and  to  indulge  in 
coprophilic  plays,  (playing  with  feces  or  urine).  Nar- 
cism  leads  to  exhibitionism.  After  studying  its  wonder- 
ful body,  the  infant  wishes  to  show  it  to  others,  boasting 
of  It  as  it  would  of  a  curious  toy.  The  handling  of  that 
toy  leads  to  the  discovery  of  some  especially  erogenous, 
pleasurable  zones.  The  desire  to  expend  whatever  in- 
terest cannot  be  expendea  upon  its  own  body  gradually 
causes  the  Infant  to  conceive  some  attachment  for  other 


34  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

human  beings,  for  its  mother,  the  great  supplier  of  wants, 
for  the  father,  the  source  of  possible  protection,  for 
similar  human  beings,  the  other  infants,  male  or  female. 
It  is  not  until  puberty  that  the  incest  taboo  and  the  homo- 
sexual taboo  bring  about  a  strict  differentiation  in  the 
child's  attitude  to  blood  relations  and  to  strangers,  to 
individuals  of  the  same  or  of  a  different  sex. 

Technically,  the  infant  holds  in  a  latent  state  the  stuff 
from  which  every  perversion  will  be  made. 

The  repression  of  all  the  elements  which  are  either 
useless,  or  harmful,  or  undesirable,  for  life  as  it  must  be 
lived  in  reality,  will  be  the  great  task  of  childhood.  h 

The  repression  will  be  the  more  arduous  as  all  those 
polymorphous  activities  are  protean  in  their  nature,  and 
before  puberty  the  tendencies  of  the  various  urges  are 
far  from  being  as  clearly  defined  as  they  are  after  pu- 
berty. 

There  is  as  much  pleasure-seeking. as  there  is  egotism 
and  infantile  sexuality  in  exhibitionism.  For  instance : 
the  child  feels  strong  and  free,  and  wishes  to  show  that 
strength  and  freedom  to  others,  and  perhaps  to  prove  it 
to  himself. 

No  illustrations  are  needed  to  show  how  our  sex-pleas- 
ure urge  and  our  ego-power  urge  are  being  repressed  in 
childhood  and  adulthood,  by  our  self-protection  urge,  by 
society  or  our  environment.  We  are  prevented  from  per- 
forming certain  sexual  or  egotistic  actions  by  our  self- 
protection  urge,  educated  gradually  by  life  among  human 
beings. 

Certain  acts  would  decrease  our  food  supply,  our  phys- 
ical safety,  and  endanger  our  social  standing,  our  power, 
our  sense  of  superiority. 


THE   REPRESSION   OF   THE    URGES  35| 

In  many  cases,  however,  the  struggle  between  the  self- 
protection  urge  and  the  sex  and  ego  urge  is  an  uneven 
one.  Our  egotism  and  will-to-power  cause  us  to  repress 
fear  and  to  pretend  that  we  are  not  afraid.  We  throw 
ourselves  into  the  water  to  save  a  drowning  person ;  sol- 
diers in  the  trenches  behave  bravely  under  fire;  children 
are  trained  to  enter  dark  rooms;  a  man  may  disregard 
all  the  rules  of  physical  safety  In  order  to  win  a  certain 
woman. 

It  is  in  childhood  that  the  strife  is  most  bitter.  It  is 
in  childhood  that  we  force  ourselves  to  forget  the  great- 
est number  of  cravings.  But  as  we  said  before  nothing 
can  be  suppressed  and  nothing  can  be  forgotten  which  was 
not  extremely  unimportant.  Hypnosis  and  analysis 
bring  back  to  consciousness  thousands  of  details  which 
had  been  apparently  buried  forever  in  our  unconscious. 

Our  childhood  Is  the  period  of  our  lives  which  we 
remember  the  least  distinctly.  Its  events  seem  to  have 
never  taken  place.  Some  of  us  are  deceived  on  that 
point.  They  remember  themselves  as  children.  That 
alone  shows  that  such  memories  as  they  have  are  only 
cover-memories,  concealing  something  unpleasant,  or  ac- 
quired memories,  based  upon  statements  made  by  their 
parents  or  pictures  seen  In  family  albums.  For  In  real 
memories  we  never  see  ourselves;  we  are  as  In  our  dreams, 
In  the  center  of  the  stage  and  everything  else  present  Is 
related  to  us,  the  things  not  related  to  us  being  Inexistent. 

That  amnesia  of  our  childhood  happenings  Is  due  to 
the  unpleasant  character  of  that  period  of  continuous  re- 
pression. 

When  adulthood  Is  reached,  no  new  form  of  repression 
takes  place  except  In  emergencies,  or  when  the  human 


3  6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

being  moves  from  his  original  environment  into  an  en- 
tirely new  one. 

Then,  of  course,  the  sense  of  reality  is  submitted  to  a 
definite  revision.  Normality  is  simply  the  ability  to 
adapt  oneself  to  one's  environment  without  too  much  fric- 
tion. Abnormality  is  either  the  inabihty  or  the  unwill- 
ingness to  adapt  oneself. 

What  may  be  normal  in  one  part  of  the  world  may  be 
abnormal  elsewhere.  It  is  normal  for  a  human  being  to 
build  a  snow  house,  to  go  fishing  and  hunting  at  all  sea- 
sons, if  he  was  born  under  the  Arctic  circle  and  intends 
to  live  there.  The  same  behavior,  observed  in  a  busy 
metropolis,  would  necessitate  some  interference  on  the 
part  of  the  police.  A  ceremonial  highly  reputable  in 
Central  Africa  might  be  considered  as  a  proof  of  insanity 
in  the  temperate  zone. 

The  normal  individual  is,  then,  the  one  who  submits, 
at  least  in  appearance,  to  the  rules  restricting  individual 
freedom  in  his  environment  and  who  seeks  compensation 
for  whatever  he  gives  up  in  ways  which  are  either  social  or 
harmless. 

The  abnormal  individual  either  refuses  to  submit,  or 
seeks  compensation  in  ways  which  are  either  asocial  or 
harmful  to  the  individual  himself. 

The  form  of  compensation  which  the  individual  will 
seek  depends  on  the  type  to  which  he  belongs. 

The  process  of  repression  of  the  urges  produces  two 
human  types  which  Jung  has  defined  as  follows:  *'  The 
introverted  type,  which  finds  unconditioned  values  within 
himself,  and  the  extroverted  type  which  finds  the  uncon- 
ditioned value  outside  himself.  The  introverted  con- 
siders everything  under  the  aspect  of  the  value  of  his 


THE   REPRESSION   OF   THE    URGES  37 

own  ego;  the  extroverted  depends  upon  the  value  of  his 
object." 

The  "  classicists  "  of  Ostwald,  the  "  ApoUonians  "  of 
Nietzsche,  the  "  tender-minded "  of  James  are  intro- 
verted; the  "romanticists"  of  Ostwald,  the  "  Dionysi- 
ans  "  of  Nietzsche,  the  "  tough-minded  "  of  James  are 
extroverted.  Civilizations  can  be  classified  from  that 
point  of  view.  The  East  is  more  introverted,  the  West 
more  extroverted.  As  White  puts  it,  "  To  the  extent 
that  our  interests  flow  outward  and  attach  themselves  to 
objects  and  events  in  the  outer  world  of  reality,  we  are 
extroverted.  .  .  .  The  introverted  person  is  one  who 
views  the  world  from  within,  considers  the  world  accord- 
ing to  the  effect  it  has  upon  him." 

Introverts  and  extroverts  will  go  through  life  seeking 
different  kinds  of  compensation  for  the  repression  of  their 
urges.  That  compensation  shall  be  either  normal  or 
abnormal.  An  inkling  of  what  the  normal  compensation 
will  be  is  given  us  by  Mencken  in  his  definition  of 
the  ApoUonians  and  Dionysians  (introverts  and  extro- 
verts) ;  "  Epic  poetry,  sculpture,  painting  and  story  telling 
are  apollonic:  they  represent,  not  life  itself,  but  some 
man's  visualized  view  of  life.  Dancing,  great  deeds  and, 
In  some  cases,  music,  are  dionysian;  they  are  part  and 
parcel  of  life  as  some  actual  human  being  or  collection 
of  human  beings.  Is  living  it."  The  compensation  may 
be  abnormal.  "  We  see,"  .White  writes,  "  extroversion 
In  a  severe  hysteria  or  a  maniacal  excitement,  or  intro- 
version manifested  in  a  psychoneurosis  or  a  dementia 
praecox.  .  .  .  We  constantly  see  people  so  extroverted 
that  they  are  confused  by  the  multiplicity  of  objects  .  .  . 
we  find  people  ...  so  introverted  that  they  are  severely 


38  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

hampered  ...  by  superstitions,  about  thirteen  perhaps, 
or  starting  anything  on  Friday." 

The  next  nine  chapters  will  be  devoted  to  a  study  of 
the  ways  in  which  normal  people  find  compensation  for 
the  various  wishes,  desires  and  cravings  which  social 
adaptation,  without  which  community  life  is  impossible, 
has  repressed  during  their  infancy,  childhood  and  adult- 
hood. 

Some  of  those  compensatory  activities  are  purely  self- 
ish; some  have  a  high  social  value  which  in  certain  cases 
has  been  recognized  and  rewarded  by  society. 


CHAPTER  IV 

NIGHT   DREAMS   AND   DAY   DREAMS 

Foremost  among  the  normal  outlets  for  the  energy 
which  our  daily  clashes  with  civilization  repress  and  store 
up  in  our  unconscious  are  night  and  day  dreams.  In  our 
dreams  we  no  longer  know  any  limitations.  Our  free- 
dom is  absolute.  We  generally  develop  forms  of  power 
with  which  mankind  has  not  been  endowed,  such  as  fly- 
ing or  moving  at  a  terrific  speed;  in  every  scene  we  occupy 
the  center  of  the  stage;  custom  and  ethics  hardly  bother 
us. 

There  had  been  thousands  of  dream  books  before 
Freud's  day,  but  no  scientist  worthy  of  the  name  had  ever 
occupied  himself  with  those  apparently  nonsensical  phe- 
nomena until  Freud  observed  a  strange  relationship  be- 
tween the  condition  of  some  of  his  patients  and  their 
dreams. 

Here  again,  he  proceeded,  not  from  a  preconceived  the- 
ory, but  in  a  purely  empirical  way,  collecting  numberless 
dreams  and  analyzing  them  as  methodically  as  a  scientist, 
finding  himself  in  the  presence  of  an  unknown  body, 
would  determine  its  nature  and  composition  by  weighing 
it,  measuring  it,  and  submitting  it  to  the  action  of  various 
re-agents. 

What  causes  dreams?  Certain  scientists  consider 
dreams  as  the  remnants  of  the  day's  unfinished  thoughts, 
which,  in  some  erratic  way,  complete  themselves  or  spend 
themselves  at  night. 

39 


40  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Bergson,  as  delightfully  vague  on  this  as  on  any 
other  subject,  supposes  that  in  our  sleep  our  powers  of 
attention  are  weakened  and  allow  certain  ideas  to  es- 
cape. 

Others  attribute  to  dreams  a  purely  physical  cause:  a 
heavy  dinner  may  cause  nightmares,  insufficient  bed  cloth- 
ing may  cause  us  to  dream  that  we  are  at  the  North 
Pole,  etc. 

Maury,  who  studied  dreams  experimentally  for  years, 
gives  in  "  Le  Sommeil  et  les  Reves  "  a  most  interesting 
list  of  dreams  produced  in  himself  by  physical  stimuli. 

One  of  his  students  was  instructed  to  tickle  him  on  the 
nose  and  lips  with  a  feather.  He  dreamed  that  a  mask 
of  pitch  was  applied  to  his  face  and  then  removed  sud- 
denly, tearing  off  the  skin. 

A  piece  of  wood  having  struck  the  back  of  his  neck,  he 
dreamed  that  he  had  taken  part  in  the  French  Revolution, 
had  been  arrested,  sentenced  to  death  and  that  the  exe- 
cutioner was  letting  the  guillotine's  knife  descend  to  cut 
off  his  head. 

The  "  scrap  of  thoughts  "  theory  explains  nothing,  nor 
does  Bergson's  ingenious  supposition;  while  Maury's  ex- 
periments fail  to  show  why  the  same  stimulus  never  causes 
exactly  the  same  dream. 

The  first  important  observation  Freud  made  about 
dreams  was  that  they  always  contain  an  allusion  to  some 
detail  of  our  life  during  the  previous  waking  state 
Something  we  saw,  heard,  said  or  did  between  the  time 
of  our  previous  awakening  and  the  time  when  we  went  to 
sleep  plays  a  certain  part  in  every  one  of  our  dreams. 
An  enormous  amount  of  condensation  also  takes  place. 
Things,   people,   ideas,   are   frequently  compressed   into 


NIGHT   DREAMS   AND   DAY   DREAMS  ^I 

composite  formations,  like  the  monstrosity  seen  by  one 
of  Ferenczl's  patients,  a  creature  which  was  half  a  horse, 
half  a  physician,  and  attired  in  a  night  gown. 

The  discussion  of  a  dream  with  the  dreamer  brings  out 
such  an  infinite  variety  of  reminiscences  that  it  is  obvious 
that  the  dream  thoughts  exceed  greatly  the  remembered 
dream  content. 

A  displacement  of  Interest  also  takes  place  in  every 
dream. 

Some  Insignificant  detail  of  the  dream  Is  extremely  ex- 
aggerated, while  some  important  detail  is  hardly  men- 
tioned. 

Also  the  dream  always  represents  the  "  story  "  In  a 
dramatic  form.  The  story  is  never  told  us  In  the  dream 
but  always  "  acted." 

Finally  a  re-arrangement  of  the  dream  seems  to  take 
place  in  which  the  thoughts  which,  owing  to  displacement 
and  dramatization,  coupled  with  allusions  to  events  of  the 
day  previous  and  the  condensation  of  people  or  objects, 
might  appear  completely  absurd,  are  given  an  appearance 
of  sense  and  connection. 

This  is  what  Freud  calls  the  secondary  elaboration. 

The  majority  of  the  dreams  of  adults  deal  with  erotic 
subjects. 

Finally,  many  dreams  caused  by  physical  stimuli  have 
a  tendency  to  protect  our  sleep  by  making  the  physical 
stimulus,  sound,  light,  heat,  etc.,  plausible  and  unlikely 
to  worry  us  and  wake  us  up. 

A  light  flashed  in  the  sleeper's  eyes  may  be  dramatized 
by  the  "dream  work"  so  as  to  represent  lightning  or 
a  beacon  light  at  sea. 

The  unexpected  and  unexplained  character  of  the  stim- 


42  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ulus  no  longer  causes  the  sleeper  to  question  the  source 
of  the  stimulus  and  he  remains  peacefully  asleep. 

As  it  is  probable  that  we  never  stop  thinking  night  or 
day,  any  more  than  our  heart  stops  beating,  our  lungs 
absorbing  oxygen,  our  blood  coursing  through  our  ar- 
teries and  veins,  and  liver  storing  up  sugar,  our  night 
thinking  is  conditioned,  like  our  day  thinking,  by  the  same 
struggle  between  our  urges. 

In  our  waking  states,  our  constantly  active  and  seldom 
repressed  self-protection  urge,  which  Freud  calls  the 
"  censor,"  prevents  us  from  doing,  speaking  of,  and  very 
often  thinking  of  actions  which  would  endanger  our  life 
or  comfort.  In  our  waking  life,  the  self-protection  urge, 
backed  by  our  social  and  physical  environment,  generally 
carries  the  day  and  successfully  suppresses  all  the  activ- 
ities which  society  would  censure  severely.  At  night, 
however,  when  the  self-protection  urge  can  relax  its  vig- 
ilance (for  in  the  sleep-paralysis  of  the  motor  centers, 
thoughts  are  seldom  likely  to  be  translated  into  deeds), 
the  repressed  sex  and  ego  urges  gain  the  upper  hand. 

Their  victory,  however,  is  not  won  without  a  stren- 
uous fight.  That  fight  is  often  revealed  by  horrible 
dreams  known  as  anxiety  dreams,  in  the  course  of  which 
we  may  undergo  great  physical  or  mental  suffering  and  be 
tortured  by  various  fears. 

Careful  study  of  all  dreams,  however,  including  night- 
mares, anxiety  dreams  and  "  horrors,"  will  reveal  to  us 
that  every  dream  is  the  fulfilment  of  a  conscious  or  un- 
conscious wish,  and  a  form  of  compensation  for  the  re- 
pressed strivings  of  our  urges. 

Certain  obvious  dreams  will  confirm  this  statement. 

Otto  Nordenskjold  in  his  book  "  The  Antarctic,"  pub- 


NIGHT   DREAMS   AND   DAY   DREAMS  43 

llshed  in  1904,  described  the  dreams  which  he  and  his 
men,  marooned  in  a  Polar  wilderness,  living  on  preserves, 
cut  off  from  the  world's  news,  vainly  straining  their  eyes 
to  catch  sight  of  a  sail,  had  night  after  night.  They 
would  dream  of  attending  dinner  parties  where  meals  of 
many  courses  would  be  served;  the  postman  appeared 
with  bags  of  mail;  there  were  mountains  of  tobacco  to  be 
had;  ships  were  approaching  under  full  sail,  etc. 

Other  dreams,  however,  are  not  quite  so  obvious,  and 
require  more  ingenuity  if  they  are  to  be  interpreted  as 
wish  fulfilment. 

Some  are  so  completely  disfigured  by  condensation  and 
displacement  that  they  may  appear  to  be  anything  but 
wish  fulfilment. 

Freud  says  that  all  the  dreams  of  one  night,  when  con- 
sidered with  respect  to  their  content,  are  simply  parts  of 
one  unit.  Their  separation  into  several  portions,  their 
groupings,  have  a  special  meaning.  The  first  part  of  our 
dreams  is  more  disfigured,  .more  bashful,  than  the  end. 

This  lends  credibility  to  Maeder's  theory  that  our 
dreams  seek  constantly  a  satisfying  solution  for  our  un- 
conscious problems. 

In  seeking  that  solution,  that  is,  in  trying  to  liberate 
the  suppressed  unconscious,  the  dream  is  hampered  by 
the  censor,  which,  being  in  part  acquired,  while  the  other 
urges  are  congenital,  goes  down  to  defeat  at  the  end  of 
the  dream  or  at  the  end  of  the  night. 

The  censor  then  disfigures  the  action  of  the  drama  In 
such  a  way  that  we  have  a  so-called  "  anxiety  dream," 
which  appears  just  the  opposite  of  a  wish  fulfilment. 

But  that  anxiety  is  simply  due  to  the  struggle  between 
an  impulse  emanating  from  the  unconscious  and  the  cen- 


44  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

sor.  Therefore  when  a  sensation  of  inhibition  in  the 
dream  is  accomplished  by  anxiety  there  must  be  present  a 
volition  which  has  at  one  time  been  capable  of  arousing  a 
desire. 

Unable  to  prevent  the  wish  from  being  fulfilled,  our 
censor  transforms  the  wish  and  its  satisfaction  into  sym- 
bolic presentations,  which  are  not  consciously  understood 
by  the  dreamer.  We  shall  see  in  another  chapter  what 
symbols  mean. 

Symbols  are  the  lingua  franca  of  the  dream  and  no  at- 
tempt at  dream  interpretation  should  be  made  by  anyone 
who  has  not  mastered  that  language.  Let  us  give  one 
example  which  will  enable  the  reader  to  find  a  confirma- 
tion of  Freud's  theory  even  in  dreams  which  seem  to  con- 
tradict it  flatly.  A  young  woman  may  dream  that  a 
horse  is  stamping  over  her.  In  all  dreams  of  all  na- 
tions at  all  periods  of  history,  being  trampled  upon  by  a 
horse  is  a  symbol  of  submission  to  the  sexual  act.   .   .   . 

The  displacement  of  interest  may  also  create  at  times 
a  scepticism  as  to  Freud's  theory. 

One  of  Freud's  patients  told  him  that  she  had  dreamed 
of  attending  the  funeral  of  her  little  nephew  to  whom  she 
was  greatly  attached.  It  turned  out,  however,  that  at 
the  funeral  of  another  nephew  she  had  met  a  man  with 
whom  she  fell  in  love. 

The  dream  of  the  second  funeral  was  really  meant  to 
bring  her  together  with  that  man  under  circumstances 
similar  to  the  ones  under  which  she  met  him  first.  The 
most  important  detail  of  the  dream,  the  man  she  loved, 
was  hardly  noticeable,  while  the  funeral,  which  was  a 
mere  pretext,  was  exaggerated  considerably. 

This  displacement  can  well  be  illustrated  by  incidents 


NIGHT   DREAMS   AND   DAY   DREAMS  45 

of  our  daily  life.  A  man  who  finds  no  plausible  excuse 
for  calling  on  a  woman  he  likes,  may  pretend  that  he  left 
his  umbrella  at  her  house.  He  will  ask  the  servants,  the 
family,  for  the  missing  umbrella,  in  other  words  magnify 
greatly  a  detail  which  in  itself  is  insignificant.  He  will 
not  even  allude  to  the  all-important  reason  of  his  call, 
his  desire  to  see  the  woman  of  his  fancies. 

The  dramatization  of  every  incident  by  the  dream-work 
Is  one  more  piece  of  evidence  that  the  dream  is  meant  to 
fulfill  a  wish. 

Frazer  mentions  in  the  "  Golden  Bough  "  that  savage 
and  primitive  races  always  present  dramatically  the  events 
which  they  desire  to  bring  about,  for  instance,  sprinkling 
the  ground  in  order  to  produce  rain,  their  belief  being 
that  the  visual  presentation  of  an  event  effectively  con- 
tributes to  its  production. 

The  way  in  which  our  dream  seeks  solutions  for  men- 
tal conflicts  is  well  illustrated  by  one  of  my  dreams. 

One  night  before  the  date  set  for  a  lecture  which  I  was 
to  deliver  on  a  rather  delicate  subject,  likely  to  involve 
me  in  difficulties,  and  which  I  would  have  preferred  not 
to  deliver,  I  had  the  following  dream: 

I  was  seated  on  the  stage  at  Carnegie  Hall  where  an 
enormous  audience  had  gathered  to  hear  me.  The  chair- 
man was  busy  making  various  announcements.  I  looked 
at  my  feet  and  discovered  that  I  wore  bed  slippers.  I 
felt  embarrassed  at  that  undignified  detail  of  my  toilet 
and  for  a  second  or  so  planned  to  go  home  and  return 
in  more  conventional  attire.  I  finally  decided  to  stay. 
Then,  as  the  chairman  was  beginning  to  announce  me, 
I  looked  for  my  lecture  notes,  and  could  not  find  them. 
I  made  an  effort  to  remember  the  outHne  of  my  lecture 


4-6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

and  could  not  recall  anything  whatever.  I  then  decided 
to  disappear  without  warning  the  chairman.  As  I 
emerged  into  the  hall,  I  met  two  women  I  knew  and  felt 
the  need  of  explaining  my  action.  I  explained  to  them 
that  the  heat  was  nauseating  me  and  that  I  would  have  to 
go  home.  A  few  steps  further  down  the  hall  I  met  a 
physician  who  looked  at  me  and  said  with  deep  compas- 
sion, "  The  poor  fellow  is  very  sick."  Then  I  began  to 
vomit  and  went  home. 

The  dream  offered  me  several  excuses  for  breaking  my 
engagement.  My  appearance  was  undignified  (bed  slip- 
pers), I  was  not  sufficiently  prepared,  I  was  sick.  I  se- 
cured a  friendly  physician's  testimonial  as  to  my  physical 
condition. 

The  choice  of  sickness  (nausea)  made  by  the  dream,  is 
the  more  interesting  as  hysterical  vomiting  is  often 
brought  about  by  a  more  or  less  unconscious  unwilling- 
ness to  perform  an  unpleasant  task. 

While  the  dream  was,  in  its  general  make-up,  an  "  anx- 
iety dream,"  still,  for  the  time  being,  it  had  solved  the 
problem  raised  by  that  unpleasant  lecture  engagement 
and  had  replaced  one  form  of  mental  anguish  by  one  In- 
finitely more  bearable. 

My  self-protection  urge  wished  me  to  cancel  the  en- 
gagement. The  dream  cancelled  it,  at  the  same  time  giv- 
ing plenty  of  satisfaction  to  my  ego  urge:  Carnegie  Hall, 
one  of  the  largest  halls  in  New  York  City,  where,  by  the 
way,  I  have  never  spoken,  a  large  audience,  and  finally 
humiliation  avoided,  thanks  to  the  physician's  statement 
as  to  my  physical  condition,  which  "  saved  my  face." 

I  may  add  that  at  the  time  I  was  expecting  the  par- 
ticular physician  who  appeared  in  the  dream  to  perform 


J 


NIGHT  DREAMS  AND  DAY  DREAMS        47 

a  similar  service  for  me.  One  of  the  two  women  was  a 
hospital  nurse  I  had  seen  the  day  before  (an  actual  event 
from  my  previous  waking  state). 

Finally  the  dream-work  did  not  simply  give  me  advice 
as  to  means  of  breaking  my  engagement  but  dramatized 
the  breaking  of  that  engagement. 

Certain  dreams  only  fulfill  our  wish  by  appealing  to 
our  logic.  Among  those  are  examination  dreams.  Ex- 
amination dreams  generally  precede  some  trial  in  our  life 
which  we  are  not  sure  of  undergoing  successfully.  Only 
those,  who  have  passed  examinations,  dream  that  they 
fail.  It  is  as  though  the  dream  said  to  us:  "Your 
difficulties  are  imaginary;  this  is  only  a  dream,  for  you 
know  very  well  that  you  passed  this  examination  years 
ago." 

Certain  anxiety  dreams  play  the  part  of  mental  com- 
forters. We  have  a  feeling  while  dreaming  that  "  it  is 
only  a  dream,"  that  we  can  wake  ourselves  up  and 
escape  the  horror  by  a  mere  act  of  will,  or  a  sudden  mo- 
tion.    And  we  generally  manage  to  do  so. 

Maeder  gives  interesting  illustrations  of  solution 
dreams  in  his  ''  Dream  Problem."  A  man  who  had  been 
struggling  for  a  long  time  with  certain  bad  habits  saw 
himself  traveling  in  a  railroad  carriage,  stepping  out  of 
the  car,  climbing  a  house  and  disappearing  at  the  top  of 
the  lightning  rod. 

Another,  in  the  same  predicament,  saw  an  objectionable 
man,  symbolizing  his  own  bad  habits,  ejected  forcibly 
from  a  church. 

Certain  dreams  may  be  so  unpleasant  that  It  Is  difficult 
for  laymen  to  consider  them  as  any  form  of  wish  fulfil- 
ment. 


48  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Some  appear  unpleasant  on  account  of  the  process  of 
displacement  I  have  mentioned  before. 

A  poor  man  dreamed  that  he  was  in  the  office  of  the 
tax  commissioner,  filling  out  his  income  tax  report.  He 
declared  the  $2000  on  which  no  tax  was  due,  but  the. 
clerk,  who  received  his  report,  eyed  him  in  a  hostile 
way,  called  a  policeman  and  had  him  arrested.  He  was 
taken  to  court  and  convicted  of  concealing  an  Income  of 
several  millions.  The  "  anxiety  "  element  of  the  fantasy 
was  simply  due  to  the  struggle  of  the  censor  or  self-pro- 
tection urge  restraining  the  man's  ego  urge  from  imagin- 
ing such  incredible  financial  prosperity. 

Other  so-called  "  anxiety  dreams  "  are  the  fulfilment  of 
some  repressed  infantile  wish,  such  as  incest  or  the  death 
of  our  parents.  Freud  has  proved  the  presence  of  many 
incestuous  ideas  in  the  infantile  mind.  Those  ideas  are 
repressed  when  the  infant  becomes  a  child  or  later  in  life 
when  ethical  teachings  make  it  impossible  for  him  even  to 
entertain  such  thoughts.  They  linger  in  the  unconscious, 
however,  and  some  time  become  liberated  by  the  dream- 
work. 

Freud  calls  our  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  the  child's 
vocabulary,  "  to  die  "  simply  means  to  go  away,  to  disap- 
pear. Children,  after  attending  their  father's  funeral, 
may  ask  anxiously  the  next  day:  "Why  don't  Daddy 
come  home?"  The  threat  often  expressed  by  children 
in  their  disputes,  "  I  hope  you'll  die,"  is  to  be  interpreted 
in  that  harmless  way. 

And  likewise,  the  feeling  of  burden,  of  encumbrance 
produced  at  times  by  our  parents,  relatives  or  friends, 
which  makes  us  long  for  a  larger  freedom,  may  translate 


NIGHT  DREAMS  AND  DAY  DREAMS        49 

itself  Into  the  infantile  parlance  of  dreams  and  visualize 
for  us  an  event  which  would  in  reality  be  extremely  pain- 
ful for  us. 

The  reason  why  we  forget  our  dreams  and  sometimes 
imagine  that  we  never  dream,  Is  probably  the  same  reason 
which  causes  us  to  forget  many  happenings  of  our  life. 
Some  are  insignificant  and  some  are  painful.  Freud  says 
that  much  of  the  apparently  disconnected  character  of  our 
dreams  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  censor  has  cut  out  bod- 
ily entire  parts  of  the  dream  or  at  least  repressed  our 
memory  of  them,  as  they  touch  unpleasant  complexes. 

He  compares  the  "  disconnected  "  character  of  dreams 
with  the  rambling  talk  of  delirious  patients,  in  which  gaps 
represent  what  the  patient  would  like  to  say  but  is  pre- 
vented from  saying  by  the  censor.  The  patient's  words 
are  also  disconnected,  but  a  knowledge  of  his  history  and 
of  his  complexes  enables  one  to  fill  those  gaps. 

Dreams  may  be  at  times  prophetic,  and  at  other  times 
may  be  made  to  appear  so  on  account  of  a  coincidence. 

Any  subject  which  obsesses  our  minds  Is  likely  to  occupy 
our  dreams  frequently.  Our  dream-work,  constantly 
seeking  the  solution  of  our  life  problems,  may  easily 
point  out  a  solution  which  Is  practicable  in  our  ac- 
tual life.  Almost  all  the  dreams  of  the  race  have  at 
some  time  come  to  pass.  The  most  universal  dream  Is 
that  of  flying.  Man  now  flies.  Magic  mirrors,  magic 
horns,  enabling  man  to  see  distant  parts  of  the  earth  and 
to  talk  to  distant  countries,  have  given  birth  to  the  tele- 
scope and  the  telephone. 

Our  mind,  dreaming  of  thousands  of  solutions,  may 
well  visualize  some  night  one  solution  which  will  turn 


50  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

out  to  be  the  actual  one,  after  which  the  coincidence 
strikes  us  and  makes  us  forget  all  the  other  solutions 
which  were  discarded  earlier. 

A  newspaper  headline  may  remind  us  suddenly  of  some 
dream  we  had  the  night  before.  Thousands  of  people 
who  had  dreams  of  shipwrecks  or  merely  of  ships  may 
have  credited  their  dreams  with  prophetic  power  when 
the  next  morning  they  read  of  the  sinking  of  the  Titanic 
or  of  the  Liisitania. 

Self-suggestion  in  such  cases  adds  many  details  which 
were  not  actually  a  part  of  the  dream.  Munsterberg's 
experiments  with  students  who  often  reported  with  fan- 
tastic inaccuracy  happenings  taking  place  in  the  class- 
room should  make  us  slightly  suspicious  of  our  ability  to 
remember  exactly  the  details  of  our  dreams. 

Day  dreams  are  very  similar  to  night  dreams,  the  prin- 
cipal difference  being  that  we  are  more  likely  to  remem- 
ber our  day  dreams  than  our  night  dreams  and  therefore 
the  former  appear  more  consistent.  In  them,  also,  we 
seem  to  pay  closer  attention  to  physical  probability  and 
possibility,  although  that  does  not  apply  to  all  cases  and 
rather  depends  upon  individual  fancies  and  habits. 

There  is  as  much  condensation  in  day  dreams  as  In 
night  dreams,  there  being  a  gradual  transformation  In 
the  appearance  of  people  and  things  Instead  of  simulta- 
neous combinations  of  heterogeneous  elements.  We  ob- 
serve In  them  the  same  dramatization,  displacement  and 
secondary  elaboration.  In  artists,  that  secondary  elab- 
oration may  become  the  thread  and  woof  of  a  novel  or 
play  In  which  the  primal  elements  have  been  absorbed. 

Day  dreams,  like  night  dreams,  show  a  strong  sexual 
content,  one  half  of  their  component  elements  being  sex- 


NIGHT    DREAMS    AND    DAY   DREAMS  5 1 

ual,  the  other  half  egotistic.  In  other  words,  love  and 
ambition  are  their  subject  matter.  The  censor,  being 
able  in  our  waking  states  to  repress  more  easily  certain 
thoughts,  does  not  resort  as  often  to  symbolization  as  it 
does  in  night  dreams.  Since  logic  and  conventionality 
are  In  our  waking  state  the  allies  of  the  self-protection 
urge,  symbols  are  not  so  necessary  for  purposes  of  repres- 
sion. 


CHAPTER  V 

SYMBOLS,    THE    LANGUAGE   OF   THE   DREAM 

Before  attempting  to  decipher  the  meaning  of  dreams 
we  must  become  familiar  with  the  language  in  which  they 
generally  express  themselves.  Whatever  desire  rising 
from  the  sex  or  the  ego  urge  is  denied  expression  in 
our  sleeping  state  by  our  self-protection  urge  forces  its 
way  into  our  consciousness  in  the  disguise  of  a  symbol. 
Denied  the  use  of  the  current  vernacular,  the  repressed 
urge  speaks  in  another  language  in  which  it  says  what- 
ever it  wishes  to  say.  And  curiously  enough,  the  sleeper 
himself  may  not  hav^  the  faintest  idea  of  the  wishes  thus 
expressed.  The  sleeper  expresses  many  wishes  symbol- 
ically and  yet  does  not  understand  the  meaning  of  those 
symbols.  It  sounds  paradoxical,  if  not  absurd,  until  we 
remember  certain  traditional  customs  which  have  been 
carefully  preserved,  although  their  meaning  is  absolutely 
unknown  to  the  majority  of  people. 

One  example  will  suffice:  the  rice  and  shoes  which  wed- 
ding guests  in  many  parts  of  the  world  throw  at  the  newly 
married  couple  when  they  depart  on  their  honeymoon 
journey.  The  wedding  guests  are  on  that  occasion  ex- 
pressing openly  a  wish  of  which  they  are  totally  uncon- 
scious. They  express  that  wish  in  a  language  which  they 
do  not  understand.  This  is  exactly  what  we  do  in  our 
dreams. 

When  we  remember  that,  at  all  times  and  in  all  na- 


SYMBOLS,    THE    LANGUAGE   OF   THE   DREAM  53 

tlons,  grains  like  rice,  barley,  wheat,  etc.,  have  sym- 
bolized the  fructifying  seed,  and  that  shoes  are  a  symbol 
of  the  female  genitals,  we  understand  at  once  the  meaning 
of  that  symbolic  custom. 

The  wish  thus  expressed  by  the  wedding  guests  is  un- 
conscious, for  if  It  were  conscious,  social  niceties  would 
not  permit  its  public  expression,  nor  would  the  perfectly 
proper,  conservative  girls  who  show  their  respect  for  that 
tradition,  be  guilty  of  such  an  indecent  action,  If  they  sus- 
pected the  symbolic  meaning  of  the  rice  and  shoes. 

Symbolism  may  be  made  clear  by  a  comparison  of  the 
various  symbols  with  the  Ideographs  of  the  Chinese  lan- 
guage. Every  one  of  the  characters  found  in  the  Chinese 
dictionary  was,  when  it  was  first  Invented,  a  graphic  like- 
ness of  the  person,  animal  or  object  It  represented.  A 
drawing  of  a  man  meant  man;  that  of  a  horse  meant 
horse;  the  sun,  moon,  water,  fire,  were  represented 
through  recognizable  drawings.  The  fanciful  free  hand 
of  Innumerable  penmen  gradually  transformed  those  rec- 
ognizable representations  into  unrecognizable  characters. 
At  the  present  day,  an  illiterate  Chinaman  looking  at  the 
signs  that  mean  man,  horse  or  sun,  would  never  suspect 
their  meaning,  although  an  illiterate  Chinaman  would 
have,  let  us  say  five  thousand  years  ago,  recognized  them 
at  once. 

The  human  race  undoubtedly  knew  In  archaic  times  the 
exact  meaning  of  symbols,  but  it  has  consciously  forgot- 
ten it,  while  remembering  It  unconsciously. 

Symbols  have  In  our  life,  and  especially  in  our  speech, 
an  Importance  which  cannot  be  minimized,  and  which  is 
not  commonly  realized.  The  language  of  all  races  is  sym- 
bolical and  man  is  constantly  instituting,  in  his  speech, 


54  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

comparisons,  for  Instance,  between  certain  aspects  of  na- 
ture and  parts  of  the  human  body.  White  calls  our  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  we  speak  of  the  mouth  of  a  river, 
or  a  cave;  of  the  lap,  the  bosom,  the  womb,  the  bowels 
of  the  earth;  of  the  head  of  a  lake;  of  a  neck  of  land; 
of  a  chest  of  tools;  of  the  foot  of  the  mountains.  We 
say  that  potatoes  have  eyes;  that  a  color  is  warm,  facts 
dry;  that  we  scent  trouble.   .   .  . 

A  mere  dollar  bill  is  charged  with  a  wealth  of  symbol- 
ism. Without  actual  value  in  itself,  however  torn  or 
soiled  it  may  be,  it  represents  a  certain  purchasing  power, 
a  certain  amount  of  commercial  safety  based  on  the  re- 
sources of  a  nation  ruled  by  a  solvent  government  which 
is  pledged  to  redeem  that  piece  of  paper  under  certain 
conditions.  A  drop  of  water  on  the  forehead  of  a  child 
symbolizes  the  interminable  story  of  Adam  and  Eve,  the 
temptation,  the  original  sin,  purification,  the  properties 
of  water  as  a  cleansing  fluid,  etc.  A  triangle,  or  a 
snake  biting  its  tail,  symbolizes  all  the  meditations  of 
the  fathers  of  the  church  touching  the  attributes  of  the 
divinity,  eternity,  a  triple  nature,  eternal  recurrence  of 
the  identical,  etc.  .  .  . 

Silberer  and  Jung  have  offered  illuminating  hypotheses 
that  will  lead  us  to  a  closer  understanding  of  symbol  for- 
mation. 

According  to  Silberer,  symbols  may  originate  when 
man  tries  to  grasp  mentally  something  which  his  intellect 
finds  too  remote;  they  may  also  originate  when  man's 
intellectual  powers  are  reduced  by  sleep  or  mental  dis- 
turbances. In  other  words,  an  inferior  mind,  or  a  mind 
inferior  to  a  certain  mental  task,  unable  to  use  the  lan- 
guage of  science  or  philosophy,  will  resort  to  a  symbol. 


SYMBOLS,    THE    LANGUAGE   OF   THE   DREAM  55 

Jung  tells  us  what  the  symbol  Is.  To  Jung  the  dream 
is  the  unconscious  picture  of  the  psychological  condition 
of  the  individual  In  his  waking  state.  It  presents  a  sum- 
mary of  the  unconscious  association  material  brought  to- 
gether by  a  definite  psychological  situation.  What  Freud 
calls  the  repressed  desire  Is  to  Jung  a  means  of  expression. 
There  are  tasks  which  the  individual  must  accomplish  and 
every  one  of  those  tasks  demands  a  solution.  In  many 
cases  the  solution  is  unknown  and  our  consciousness  tries 
to  find  it  by  comparing  the  present  situation  with  some 
previous  similar  situation.  For  instance,  Jung  v/rites, 
when  America  was  first  discovered  by  the  Spaniards,  the 
Indians,  who  had  never  seen  horses,  took  the  mounts  of 
the  conquerors  for  huge  pigs,  pigs  being  the  nearest  ob- 
jects of  comparison  they  could  find.  The  apparently  re- 
pressed thoughts  contained  In  the  dream  are  volitional 
tendencies  which  serve  as  language  material  for  uncon^ 
sclous  expression. 

The  use  of  very  ancient  symbols,  whose  meaning  has 
been  forgotten  by  our  conscious  mind  but  seems  clear  to 
our  unconscious.  Is  due,  according  to  Jung,  to  the  archaic 
nature  of  dream  thinking. 

Our  unconscious  mind  Is  older  than  our  conscious  mind, 
and  hence  speaks,  when  necessary,  an  older  language. 

In  other  words,  thinking  in  symbols  is  infantile,  ar- 
chaic, inferior  thinking.  It  follows  the  line  of  least  ef- 
fort. Instead  of  determining  In  scientific  ways,  by  the  ap- 
plication of  logical,  mental  operations,  the  nature,  the  es- 
sence and  the  significance  of  a  new  phenomenon.  It  simply 
compares  it  with  some  already  familiar  phenomenon, 
much  as  that  facile  comparison  may  disregard  certain  es- 
sentials, and  however  Inaccurate  It  may  be. 


^6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Primitive  people,  unable  or  unwilling  to  seek  the  mean- 
ing of  the  thunder,  the  tides,  the  setting  or  rising  of  the 
sun  and  moon,  of  sleep  and  death,  of  all  the  forces,  in  a 
word,  which  influence  mankind  physically  or  mentally, 
personified  them  through  gods  or  demons  endowed  with 
certain  attributes,  Jupiter,  Neptune,  Apollo,  the  devil. 
The  devil,  once  a  symbol  of  the  dark  forces  which  sway 
our  minds,  thus  acquired  gradually  a  fully  built  person- 
ality whose  original  meaning  has  been  forgotten.  For 
the  superstitious  the  devil  finally  acquired  an  actual,  al- 
most tangible  existence. 

Then  the  anthropomorphic  symbols  became  in  their 
turn  resymbolized  through  some  representation  of  their 
powers.  A  certain  attribute  of  the  divinity  was  symbol- 
ized by  Jesus,  then  Jesus  was  symbolized  by  the  cross,  and 
that  symbol,  wherever  represented,  is  supposed  to  drive 
away  the  devil.  In  old  cults,  fertility  was  represented  by 
a  certain  god;  then  one  essential  part  of  the  god's  body, 
his  phallus,  in  turn  symbolized  the  god  himself  and  was 
carried  through  the  fields  in  the  spring  to  insure  their  fer- 
tility. Human  sacrifices  were  replaced  by  a  lamb  or  some 
other  animal,  symbolizing  a  human  being;  then  the  sym- 
bolic lamb  was  symbolized  through  a  more  or  less  recog- 
nizable image  of  the  lamb  made  of  dough,  and  later  of 
clay.  In  China  the  animal  victim  was  finally  represented 
by  a  piece  of  paper  stating  the  market  value  of  the  ani- 
mal which  the  devout  worshipper  "  would  have  liked  " 
to  offer  to  the  divinity. 

Symbols  constituting  a  visual,  pictorial  language,  are 
especially  appropriate  for  use  in  dream  thinking.  As  we 
set  forth  in  the  previous  chapter,  the  dream  work  dram- 
atizes every  thought,  "  movieizes  "  every  conflict.     As  In 


SYMBOLS,    THE    LANGUAGE   OF   THE   DREAM  S7 

"  Everyman,"  the  various  impulses  appear  on  the  stage, 
transformed  into  men  or  women.  Instead  of  someone's 
expatiating  on  virtue  and  vice,  a  woman  called  virtue  and 
a  woman  called  vice  appear  and  hold  a  debate,  not  in 
words  but  in  pantomime. 

Our  hypocrisy,  which  is  one  of  the  avatars  of  the  self- 
protection  urge,  finds  immense  advantages  in  that  pic- 
torial representation,  for  it  is  in  many  cases  very  indefinite 
and  lends  itself  to  various  interpretations.  Anyone  us- 
ing figures  of  speech  may,  in  an  emergency,  seek  shelter 
behind  the  very  indefiniteness  of  those  figures  of  speech. 
Sometimes  the  pictorial,  symbolic  representation  of  a  de- 
sire may  create  in  the  sleeper  a  feeling  which  makes  the 
concealment  of  the  actual  repressed  desire  even  more 
complete. 

A  young  and  chaste  woman  may  dream  that  a  horse  is 
trampling  her  body.  Called  upon  to  prove  that  such  a 
dream  is  not  the  fulfilment  of  a  wish,  she  may  offer  as 
evidence  the  feeling  of  fear,  anxiety  and  suffering  at- 
tendant upon  such  an  experience. 

Fear  and  anxiety,  however,  lose  their  painful  meaning, 
and  only  become  synonymous  with  great  excitement,  when 
we  know  that  such  a  dream  is  the  universal  symbol  of  a 
sexual  attack,  a  desire  for  which  would  be  repressed  in 
a  woman  of  that  type,  and  the  visualization  of  which 
would  be  accompanied  by  ambivalent  feelings  of  pleasure- 
pain,  hope-fear. 

For  a  complete  list  of  symbols  I  refer  the  reader  to 
Freud's  "  Interpretation  of  Dreams,"  Jelliffe's  "  Practice 
of  Psychoanalysis  "  and  Silberer's  work  on  "  Symbolism 
and  Mysticism."  I  shall  only  mention  the  most  fre- 
quently encountered  symbols  and  those,  moreover,   on 


58  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

whose  meaning  all  schools  of  analysis  are  practically 
agreed. 

The  human  body  is  generally  indicated  by  a  building, 
cabin,  house  or  church.  Degrees  of  nakedness  corre- 
spond to  the  draperies,  hangings,  nets  found  In  the  build- 
ing. Parts  that  show  through  the  draperies  reveal  peep- 
ing or  exhibitionism  tendencies.  The  male  body  is 
represented  by  fiat  things,  smooth  walls  over  which  one  is 
climbing,  the  female  body  by  set  tables,  walls  with  bal- 
conies, mounds,  hills,  a  rolling  landscape. 

The  male  organ  can  be  symbolized  by  all  sorts  of  elon- 
gated objects,  sticks,  tree-trunks,  pillars,  fruits  or  vege- 
tables of  similar  shape,  women's  hats,  men's  cravats, 
birds,  fishes,  toads,  snakes,  all  sharp  weapons,  knives, 
daggers,  etc.  Feminine  genitals  are  represented  by 
boxes,  caves,  stoves,  closets,  windows,  gardens,  some- 
times by  the  figure  2. 

Potency  and  impotency  symbols  correspond  to  the 
erect  or  reclining  position  of  the  various  male  symbols. 
Moving  vehicles  which  elude  the  dreamer  indicate,  ac- 
cording to  the  dreamer's  sex,  either  the  man's  impotency 
or  the  woman's  lack  of  gratification  due  to  the  man's  im- 
potency or  premature  ejaculation. 

In  dreams  the  father  may  be  represented,  according  to 
the  local  form  of  government,  by  the  highest  person  in 
authority,  god,  emperor,  king,  governor,  mayor,  or  an  old 
man.  (Compare  the  slang  expressions  "  governor," 
"  old  man.")  The  mother  may  be  the  empress,  the 
queen,  or  a  ship,  a  tree,  a  fountain. 

Birth  symbols  are  concerned  mostly  with  water,  such 
as  falling  into  the  water  or  swimming  out  of  It,  saving 
people  or  animals,  retrieving  objects  from  a  lake  or  the 


SYMBOLS,    THE    LANGUAGE   OF   THE   DREAM  59 

sea.  Death  wishes  represent  the  unwelcome  persons  go- 
ing on  journeys  by  rail  or  boat,  vanishing  into  darkness. 

According  to  Stelcel,  right  and  left  have  a  symbolic 
meaning,  as  they  have  in  spoken  language,  right  indicat- 
ing righteousness,  left  indicating  crime,  right  the  normal 
way,  left  the  perversion. 

Colors  have  a  symbolic  meaning.  Tests  made  by  Jas- 
trow  in  the  United  States  and  Wissler  in  Europe  show 
that  blue  seems  to  wield  the  strongest  attraction  upon 
men  and  red  upon  women,  making  blue  in  some  way  a 
feminine  color  and  red  a  masculine  one.  (Adam  means 
red.)  Arrah  B.  Evarts,  who  has  compiled  the  sym- 
bolic meanings  of  colors  among  the  various  nations,  says 
that  color  symbolism  follows,  the  world  over,  fairly 
well  marked  lines.  White  is  the  color  of  the  deity,  of 
purity,  of  unity,  of  immortality.  Black  is  the  color  of 
sin  and  death.  Red  the  color  of  passion  and  of  the  crea- 
tive force.  Blue  is  the  color  of  coldness,  impassivity, 
truth;  green  of  activity  and  active  reproduction;  yellow, 
of  religious  aspirations  and  beneficence,  also  of  decay; 
purple  of  controlled  passion.  Brown  is  not  infrequently 
associated  with  feces. 

Color  symbolism  is  constantly  related  to  the  symbolism 
of  stones  or  metals.  The  language  of  gems  and  metals 
was  carefully  codified  by  the  heraldists  many  years  ago. 
We  find  the  following  associations  in  an  almost  invari- 
able order:  silver-white-pearl;  lead-black-diamond;  iron- 
red-ruby;  tin-blue-sapphire;  copper-green-emerald;  gold- 
yellow-topaz  ;  mercury-purple-amicthyst. 

Flowers  also  have  their  symbolism,  corresponding  to 
their  color:  the  red  rose  is  the  flower  of  passion;  white 
flowers  indicate  purity.     In  one  case,  however,  the  sym- 


6o  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

bolism  seems  to  have  been  forgotten  and  given  a  new 
content.  The  orange  blossoms  of  the  bridal  wreath 
once  implied  a  wish  for  fecundity  connected  with  the  fact 
that  the  orange  tree  is  the  most  fecund  of  all  trees. 
Later  their  white  petals  were  assumed  to  indicate  the 
bride's  virginity. 

Number  symbolism  is  also  curiously  connected  with 
color  symbolism.  White  is  the  unity,  black  the  zero. 
Red  is  the  number  three  which  symbolizes  the  male  prin- 
ciple.    Four  is  yellow  and  eight  is  brown. 

Colors  are  also  associated  with  certain  objects  which 
they  represent  symbolically,  red  with  fire,  brown  with 
smoke,  yellow  with  the  dog  which  in  several  mythologies 
was  constantly  associated  with  the  divinities  of  death. 

Certain  animals  are  universally  associated  in  dreams 
with  the  sexual  act,  the  horse  (especially  when  trampling 
down  a  woman)  and  the  dog  (when  trying  to  bite  her). 
Language,  with  its  highly  symbolic  trend,  has  in  all  races 
confirmed  that  association  by  speaking  of  the  "  animal  " 
side  of  our  nature. 

The  sexual  act  is  frequently  represented  by  going  up  or 
down  the  stairs,  dancing,  swinging  the  arms,  being  rocked 
in  a  swing,  in  other  words  by  many  rhythmical  motions 
of  the  body  that  imply  advancing  and  retreating.  Con- 
ception is  symbolized  by  lily  stems,  hazel  twigs,  or  by 
the  eating  of  certain  sorts  of  food,  rice,  apples,  fish,  or 
by  some  animal,  generally  a  fish,  entering  the  body. 

Dental  dreams  (falling  teeth)  may  indicate  onanism, 
homosexualism  or  pollution.  Flying  dreams  are  either 
sexual  dreams  or  symbols  of  the  world-old  desire  to  es- 
cape the  limitations  of  human  nature  and  to  acquire  super- 
human power. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   DREAMS   OF   THE    HUMAN   RACE 

Fairy-tales,  legends  and  religions  are  the  dreams  of 
the  human  race,  expressing  as  they  do  the  fulfilment  of 
mankind's  desire  for  happiness,  and  power  or  compensat- 
ing mankind  for  the  many  restrictions  imposed  upon  it 
by  man's  own  biological  status. 

We  must  at  the  outset  dissipate  a  misapprehension  fos- 
tered by  superficial  observers.  Attempts  have  been  fre- 
quently made  to  characterise  races  or  nations  by  their  par- 
ticular folklore.  A  reasonable  amount  of  unprejudiced 
reading,  however,  will  soon  convince  us  that  it  is  a  waste 
of  time  and  effort  to  seek  the  "  soul "  of  the  Eskimo,  of 
the  Basuto,  or  of  the  Russian,  in  Eskimo,  Basuto  or 
Russian  legends.  Dwellers  in  the  Arctic,  in  tropical 
lands  and  in  the  steppes  of  Eastern  Europe,  have  been 
drawing  their  legends  from  one  and  the  same  common 
fund,  the  human  fund.  Geographical  influences  have  in- 
troduced different  sets  of  scenery  into  the  folklore  of  the 
different  races:  An  Eskimo  cannot  be  expected  to  vis- 
ualize hot  yellow  sand  plains  in  his  dreams,  nor  can  a 
Central  African  negro  imagine  snow  igloos;  an  Oriental 
will,  for  certain  definite  reasons,  dream  of  a  magic  carpet 
which  transports  him  swiftly  and  comfortably  over  the 
deserts,  while  a  muzhic  may  prefer  to  ride  a  gigantic 
^rey  wolf. 

Fairy-tales  and  legends  can  be  divided,  as  dreams  were, 

6i 


62  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

into  wish  fulfilment  stories,  compensation  stories,  anxiety 
stories,  etc.  We  shall  find  in  them  the  symbols  which 
disguise  the  nakedness  of  our  urges  so  that  they  may 
elude  the  censor.  We  shall  find  in  them  our  pleasure  and 
power  urges  engaged  in  the  same  struggle  with  our  en- 
vironment. They  will  prove  just  as  asocial  as  our 
dreams.  Egotism  and  hedonism  will  always  be  found  tri- 
umphant in  the  end. 

The  hero  of  tales  and  legends  has  the  same  origin  and 
the  same  biography  the  world  over.  He  is  invariably  the 
child  of  distinguished  parents,  preferably  of  a  king  or  a 
god. 

His  birth  is  preceded  by  romantic  obstacles  to  his  par- 
ents' love,  continence,  barrenness,  secret  intercourse,  a 
great  deal  of  mystery.  He  is  either  unwelcome  or  illegit- 
imate or  there  is  a  prophecy  announcing  how  powerful 
and  dangerous  he  is  to  become;  and  his  father  generally 
wishes  to  get  rid  of  him.  He  is  generally  exposed  imme- 
diately after  birth  on  the  water  in  "  a  basket  made  of 
reeds."  In  inland  and  mountain  regions  he  is  exposed  on 
barren  cliffs.  He  is  saved  either  by  lowly  people  or 
helpful  animals  and  suckled  either  by  a  humble  woman  or 
a  she-wolf  or  goat.  Afterwards  he  grows  up,  finds  his 
real  parents,  often  takes  revenge  on  his  father  and  not 
infrequently  marries  his  mother,  like  Oedipus,  Tristan, 
St.  Gregory,  Lohengrin,  etc.  He  sometimes  dies  through 
the  instrumentality  of  a  traitor,  Hagen,  Judas,  etc. 

The  Oedipus  legend  is  quite  characteristic. 

LaTus,  king  of  Thebes,  was  warned  by  an  oracle  that 
he  would  die  at  the  hands  of  his  son.  When  the  child 
was  born  he  fastened  his  ankles  with  a  pin  and  gave 
him  to  a  herdsman  to  be  exposed. 


THE    DREAMS   OF    THE    HUMAN    RACE  63 

The  herdsman,  ignorant  of  the  oracle,  saved  the  child 
and  gave  him  to  a  Corinthian.  Oedipus,  brought  up  in 
Corinth,  heard  of  the  oracle,  and  fled  from  the  man  and 
woman  he  considered  as  his  actual  father  and  mother. 
In  a  narrow  place  in  the  road,  he  met  an  old  man,  Lai'us, 
disputed  his  right  of  way  and  killed  him.  Proceeding  on 
his  journey  he  reached  Thebes,  which  was  beset  by  the 
Sphinx.  He  answered  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx  and  thus 
destroyed  the  monster.  Thebes  rewarded  him  by  giving 
him  the  hand  of  the  widowed  queen,  Jocasta.  When  a 
pestilence  visited  the  city,  the  oracle  was  consulted  and 
it  was  discovered  that  Oedipus  was  the  son  of  Lai'us  and 
Jocasta;  Jocasta  hanged  herself  and  Oedipus  put  out  his 
eyes. 

I  cite  the  legend  at  length  for  Freud  has  selected  it  to 
typify  certain  relations  between  child  and  parents  which 
will  be  discussed  in  detail  in  Chapter  XIV. 

Rivalry  with  the  father,  not  necessarily  for  the  moth- 
er's physical  love,  but  for  her  affection  and  care,  leads  the 
boy  to  do  away  with  his  relationship  to  his  father,  either 
by  imagining  that  he  is  not  the  real  father,  or  by  invent- 
ing a  grudge  which  enables  him  to  punish  the  father. 
Also  in  his  egotism  the  child  easily  dreams  of  a  wealthier, 
more  brilliant  and  more  powerful  father,  one  who  may 
help  him  to  claim  more  respect  or  admiration. 

Greek  mythology  gives  us  many  examples  of  that  hos- 
tility between  son  and  father.  Ouranos  tries  to  do  away 
with  his  sons,  the  Titans.  His  son,  Cronos,  avenges  him- 
self by  castrating  Ouranos. 

Cronos,  in  his  turn,  devours  his  children.  One  of 
them,  Zeus,  compels  him  to  disgorge  them  and  then  cas- 
trates him. 


64  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

More  recent  legends  are  less  bloodthirsty  and  show  us 
the  hero  getting  rid  of  his  father  in  more  subtle  ways. 

The  story  of  Moses  is  the  best  known  among  the 
stories  based  upon  a  sexual  indiscretion  on  the  part  of 
the  mother,  a  young  princess,  as  a  rule,  who  exposes  her 
child  and  then  finds  it  again. 

Whatever  changes  of  costume  and  scenery  may  have 
been  introduced  by  geographical  influences,  local  customs, 
etc.,  there  is,  strangely  enough,  one  detail  which  is  never 
lacking  in  that  type  of  stories,  be  they  Greek,  Babylonian, 
Persian,  Egyptian,  Hebrew  or  Russian. 

The  unwelcome  child  is  placed  in  a  basket  of  reeds, 
made  waterproof  with  pitch  or  wax,  and  allowed  to  float 
away  on  a  lake,  a  river  or  the  sea. 

The  oldest  of  those  stories  is  that  of  King  Sargon  of 
Babylon,  dating  to  2800  B.  c.  An  inscription  on  Sargon's 
tomb  reads: 

"  Sargon,  the  mighty  king  of  x^gade,  am  I.  My 
mother  was  a  vestal;  my  father  I  knew  not.  In  a  hidden 
place  my  mother  bore  me.  She  laid  me  in  a  vessel  made 
of  reeds,  closed  the  door  with  pitch  and  dropped  me  into 
the  river  which  did  not  drown  me.  Akki,  the  water  car- 
rier, lifted  me  up,  raised  me  as  his  own  son  and  made 
me  his  gardener.  In  my  work  I  was  beloved  by  Istar,  be- 
came king  and  for  45  years  held  kingly  sway.   .  .   ." 

We  have  here  the  first  version  on  record  of  the  virgin 
birth,  which  was  destined  to  have  a  very  successful  career. 

Among  other  well  known  heroes  corresponding  to  the 
Sargon  type  we  find:  The  Hebrew  Moses,  tlie  Hindoo 
Kama,  son  of  the  Virgin  Kunti  and  the  Sun-God,  the 
Greek  Ion,  ancestor  of  the  lonians,  son  of  Kreusa  and 
Apollo,  Telephos,  son  of  the  vestal  Auge  and  the  God 


THE   DREAMS   OF   THE    HUMAN   RACE  65 

Heracles,  the  Roman  Romulus  and  Remus,  sons  of  the 
vestal  Rhea  Sylvia  and  the  God  Mars;  Hercules,  son  of 
the  virgin  Alkmene  and  Jupiter,  not  to  forget  of  course 
Jesus,  son  of  Mary  the  Virgin. 

The  feminine  counterpart  of  the  Oedipus  story  has 
been  typified  in  psychoanalytic  literature  by  the  Electra 
story,  in  which  Electra,  daughter  of  Agamemnon,  kills 
her  mother  to  avenge  her  father's  death.  That  conflict 
between  two  women  is  repeated  in  folklore  by  hundreds 
of  varied  Cinderella  stories.  The  daughter  is  jealous  of 
her  mother  and  eliminates  her  by  various  subterfuges. 
One  of  them  is  the  denial  of  the  relationship  and  the 
transformation  of  the  mother  into  a  stepmother;  another 
is  the  assumption  of  her  death. 

The  incest  part  is  generally  glossed  over  and  rather 
hard  to  detect.  One  group  of  stories,  found  the  world 
over,  run  as  follows : 

A  queen  dies,  leaving  a  daughter  who  resembles  her 
strangely.  One  day  the  king  notices  that  resemblance 
and  wishes  to  marry  his  daughter.  The  daughter  flees 
to  some  strange  land,  where  she  meets  another  old  king, 
an  exact  replica  of  her  own  father,  becomes  his  slave  and 
then  his  wife  or  concubine. 

Sex  and  ego  satisfaction  are  interestingly  blended  In 
Cinderella  stories. 

They  all  emphasize  the  conflict  between  the  young 
girl  and  her  mother  or  stepmother,  and  all  end  with  the 
humiliation  of  the  mother  and  the  other  daughters  and 
Cinderella's  marriage  to  a  beautiful  prince.  Local  con- 
ditions have  modified  the  story  and  sometimes  through  a 
certain  displacement  lay  the  stress  on  a  new  character, 
but  the  conflict  is  always  the  same  and  so  is  the  solution. 


66  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Take  for  instance  the  Russian  version  of  the  Cinderella 
story,  known  as  Jack  Frost,  and  which  seems  to  be  only- 
one  of  the  adventures  of  Ivan  Moroz,  the  evil  genius  of 
the  Russian  winter: 

There  Is  the  usual  fairy-tale  family,  with  a  weak  father, 
a  wicked  stepmother  and  three  daughters.  Two  of  the 
daughters  are  vain,  arrogant  creatures,  the  stepmother's 
own  daughters.  The  third  girl  is  the  kind,  simple,  obedi- 
ent, overworked  daughter  of  the  father  by  his  first  wife. 
The  henpecked  husband  is  commanded  one  day  to  take  his 
daughter  into  the  snow-cov^ered  woods  and  abandon  her. 

Jack  Frost  comes  jumping  from  tree  to  tree  and  asks 
her,  "Are  you  warm,  little  maiden?"  She  is  shivering 
but  answers  meekly,  "  I  am  warm.  Father  Frost."  A 
few  hours  later  he  returns  and  asks  her  again  whether  she 
is  warm  and  she,  although  numb,  answers,  "  I  am  very 
warm.  Father  Frost."  Later  he  returns  and  asks  the 
same  question,  embracing  her  and  calling  her  his  bride. 
She,  almost  dead,  answers  again  in  the  affirmative. 
Frost  then  covers  her  with  rich  furs  and  sends  her  to  his 
beautiful  palace.  After  this  the  wicked  stepmother,  hop- 
ing for  a  similar  fate  for  her  daughters,  has  them  also 
exposed  in  the  wood.  They,  however,  rebuke  Frost  and 
complain  of  the  cold,  whereupon  Frost  chills  them  to 
death. 

This  Is  a  dream  of  physical  and  egotist  compensation, 
to  which  revenge  Is  added.  The  drudge  becomes  a 
princess  and  humiliates  those  who  had  until  then  enslaved 
her. 

A  thousand  compensation  or  consolation  stories,  found 
in  folklore,  correspond  to  many  of  our  night  dreams. 
Many  are  those  in  which  a  loving  mother  sees  her  dead] 


THE   DREAMS   OF   THE    HUMAN   RACE  67 

child  coming  back  to  her  and  asking  her  not  to  weep  any 
more.  In  the  Japanese  version,  reported  by  Lafcadio 
Hearn,  the  mother's  tears  form  in  the  other  world  a 
river  which  dead  children  could  not  ford;  in  the  Teutonic 
version,  recorded  by  Grimm,  the  mother's  tears  fall  on 
the  dead  children's  shroud  and  chill  them. 

An  interesting  series  of  compensation  stories  is  that  of 
the  young  girl  pursued  by  a  frog,  a  snake,  a  bull,  a  lion, 
a  dog  or  some  other  animal  which  begs  for  admission  into 
her  house,  then  her  room  and  then  her  bed  and  which,  as 
night  falls,  is  transformed  into  a  beautiful  prince.  Very 
often  he  specifies  that  she  shall  not  light  a  lamp  to  look 
at  him  at  night,  for  he  might  be  then  retransformed  into 
his  previous  avatar- or  disappear  entirely.  The  tale  of 
Eros  and  Psyche  is  the  best  known  classical  version  of 
that  story. 

These  tales,  some  of  them  extremely  old,  give  us  quite 
a  list  of  the  animals  which  have  from  the  infancy  of  the 
world  been  symbols  of  sexual  attack. 

Some  of  the  stories  in  which  the  prince  Is  disguised  as  a 
deformed  beggar  or  a  poor  fiddler  end  with  the  mention 
of  two  more  dream  symbols  which  appear  frequently  in 
the  visions  of  neurotics.  The  beggar  or  fiddler  promises 
to  reveal  a  secret  to  the  girl,  who  sometimes  is  a  princess, 
on  condition  that  she  lets  him  sleep  in  her  room  or  in  her 
bed.  Guards  holding  torches  and  candles  surround  the 
bed.  But  the  princess  finally  calls  out  to  the  guards  to 
put  down  their  swords  and  put  out  the  lights,  for  the 
beggar  "  is  now  playing  his  fiddle  in  my  garden." 

Those  stories  seem  to  be  compensation  stories  for 
women  compelled  to  marry  some  repulsive  man  who  re- 
minds them  of  an  animal.     At  night,  however,  provided 


68  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

they  do  not  lay  eyes  on  him,  he  may  provide  them  with  as 
much  physical  satisfaction  as  though  he  were  a  beautiful 
prince. 

While  the  hero  of  fairy-tales  is  generally  perfect  phys- 
ically and  seems  to  escape  injuries  in  all  encounters  with 
beasts,  giants  or  other  warriors,  there  is  quite  a  list  of 
lame  and  defective  heroes:  Wotan,  Orin  and  Poliphemus 
are  one-eyed,  Loki,  Gunther  and  Wieland  are  lame,  others 
are  dumb  or  blind. 

Here  again  we  can  easily  detect  a  compensation  story 
made  up  for  the  special  convenience  of  the  story  teller's 
host. 

The  variations  found  in  the  many  versions  of  the  epics 
and  legends,  useless  enumerations  of  "  properties,"  like 
the  Iliad's  catalogue  of  ships,  may  have  been  introduced 
by  the  various  "  Homers  "  who,  taking  the  place  of  news- 
papers and  of  traveling  amusement  companies,  wandered 
from  town  to  town  and  made  it  their  business  to  propi- 
tiate their  hosts. 

The  blind,  one-eyed  or  lame  hero  was  probably  intro- 
duced into  the  story  to  console  some  chief  who  had  been 
maimed  in  battle  and  who  would  derive  much  consola- 
tion from  the  fact  that  some  god  or  hero  attained  great- 
ness in  spite  of  physical  handicaps. 

A  number  of  stories  copy  closely  anxiety  dreams.  The 
hero  is  pursued  by  many  horrible  monsters,  encounters 
more  and  more  insurmountable  obstacles,  is  not  infre- 
quently dismembered,  and  dies,  to  be  revived  by  a  sor- 
cerer or  a  helpful  animal,  after  which  he  wakes  up  say- 
ing, "  What  a  long  nap  I  have  had !  " 

The  story  of  the  Fire  Bird  embodies  practically  all 


THE    DREAMS    OF   THE    HUMAN    RACE  69 

these   features,  confirming  Freud's  'Statement  as  to  the 
sexual  nature  of  anxiety  dreams. 

The  Tsarevitsh  Ivan,  youngest  of  three  sons,  watches 
over  the  apple-tree  that  bears  gold  apples  and  manages 
to  seize  one  feather  of  the  Fire  Bird  which  every  night 
comes  and  pecks  the  apples.  His  father  promises  him 
his  empire  if  he  catches  the  bird.  Ivan  starts  out  on  his 
charger,  who  is  at  once  devoured  by  the  Grey  Wolf. 
The  wolf,  however,  takes  pity  on  him  and  carries  him 
to  the  magic  garden  in  the  27th  kingdom  where  the 
fire  bird  is  kept  in  a  gold  cage.  "  Take  the  bird,"  the 
wolf  says  to  him,  "  but  touch  not  the  cage  or  evil  will 
befall  thee."  Ivan  takes  the  bird  without  being  detected, 
but  when  he  goes  back  for  the  cage,  watchmen  appear, 
overpower  him  and  lead  him  to  the  king's  court. 

The  king  berates  him  and  promises  to  forgive  him 
if  he  goes  into  the  30th  kingdom  and  steals  for  him  the 
stallion  with  the  gold  mane.  The  wolf  takes  him  there 
and  warns  him  to  take  only  the  stallion  but  not  to  touch 
the  gold  halter.  Ivan  disobeys  the  wolf's  orders  once 
more  and  is  captured.  The  king  of  the  30th  kingdom 
promises  to  forgive  him  if  he  goes  and  steals  for  him 
the  princess  with  the  gold  braid  of  hair.  The  wolf  helps 
him  once  more.  They  bring  the  princess  back,  but  Ivan 
has  fallen  in  love  with  her. 

The  wolf  transforms  himself  into  a  perfect  image  of 
the  princess  which  enables  the  real  princess  to  escape  on 
the  stallion  with  the  gold  mane.  Ivan  exchanges  the 
stallion  for  the  Fire  Bird  and  returns  to  his  father's  court. 
His  wicked  brothers,  however,  are  lying  in  wait  for  him 
to   slay  him,   and  make   away  with   the   princess.     The 


70  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Raven  revives  Ivan  with  the  water  of  life  and  the  water 
of  death,  and  he  reaches  the  court  in  time  to  prevent  his 
brother  from  marrying  the  princess. 

Like  night  dreams  of  anxiety,  these  stories  end  with 
the  dreamer's  awakening,  which  saves  him  from  the 
threatened  danger. 

Anxiety  in  these  stories,  like  anxiety  in  dreams,  can  well 
be  explained  through  the  Freudian  theory,  a  struggle  be- 
tween a  wish  and  the  censor,  here  represented  by  the 
wolf.  Notice  that  the  wish  in  this  story  is  symbolized 
at  first  by  a  bird,  next  by  a  horse,  and  finally  by  the 
princess  Ivan  conquers  for  someone  else,  and  then  for 
himself.  This  bears  out  the  observation  made  about 
dreams,  that  it  is  only  one  dream  subject  which  occupies 
an  entire  night,  the  subject  being  treated  in  a  more  dis- 
guised way  at  the  beginning  of  the  night,  in  a  more  open 
and  brutal  way  at  the  end  of  the  night,  when  the  sex  or 
ego  urge  finally  triumphs  over  the  censor,  and  expresses 
wishes  which  were  at  first  only  brought  to  consciousness 
in  the  guise  of  symbols. 

The  animals  which  appear  in  fairy-tales  are  not  always 
sexual  symbols.  Many  of  them  are  helpful  beasts  point- 
ing to  a  strong  strain  of  totemism.  Totemism  reduced 
to  its  essential  elements  may  have  been  the  childlike  be- 
lief that,  by  entering  into  a  one-sided  agreement  with 
certain  animals,  the  tribe  could  be  protected  against  the 
depredations  or  murderous  acts  of  those  animals. 

Old  Hebrew  tribes  respected  the  wild  boar,  (which  has 
led  to  the  prohibition  of  eating  pork),  Mindoo  tribes  the 
wild  bull,  (which  has  brought  about  a  like  taboo  concern- 
ing beef),  some  European  tribes  the  dog  (whose  meat 
Asiatics  eat  without  disgust) . 


THE   DREAMS   OF   THE    HUMAN   RACE  7 1 

It  may  be  that,  in  the  infancy  of  the  world,  relations 
between  men  and  the  animals  were  quite  different  from 
what  they  are  now. 

Children  do  not  draw  the  same  line  grown-ups  do  be- 
tween themselves  and  animals.  The  child  attributes  full 
equality  to  animals.  Neurotic  children  have  been  known 
to  identify  themselves  with  animals,  for  instance  Little 
Arpad,  analyzed  by  Ferenczi,  who  identified  himself  with 
chickens  in  the  barnyard.  There  is  indeed  a  curious  un- 
derstanding between  children  and  animals.  Animals  tol- 
erate more  from  children  than  from  grown-ups.  It  Is 
the  custom  in  many  parts  of  Europe  to  entrust  dangerous 
stallions  or  bulls  to  very  young  children  who  can  lead 
them  to  cattle  fairs  without  any  danger.  It  may  be 
that  such  a  relationship  in  ages  past  has  facilitated  the 
process  of  the  domestication  of  animals. 

In  Greek  mythology  we  find  Zeus  fed  by  goats,  in 
Roman  lore,  Romulu's  and  Remus  suckled  by  a  she-wolf. 
A  bitch  suckled  Cyrus,  a  doe  fed  Siegfried,  a  swan  Lohen- 
grin, etc.   .   .   . 

There  is  also  a  parallelism  between  childish  theories  of 
pregnancy  and  pregnancy  theories  presented  in  legends, 
and  believed  in,  even  to-day,  by  primitive  races  like  the 
Australian  bushmen,  who  do  not  seem,  incredible  as  It 
may  sound,  to  have  observed  a  causal  relation  between 
cohabitation  and  motherhood. 

In  certain  Russian  stories,  a  barren  queen  became  a 
mother  after  eating  boiled  pike,  a  bitch  that  finished  the 
bones  bore  puppies,  a  cow  that  was  bespattered  with  the 
water  in  which  the  pike  was  boiled  bore  a  calf,  and  the 
patch  of  ground  on  which  the  water  was  spilled  bore 
marvelous  flowers,  vegetables  and  fruits. 


7^  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Many  Chinese,  Hindoo  and  Hebrew  legends  attribute 
to  the  dove,  European  legends  to  the  stork,  the  arrival 
of  a  new  child. 

When  the  Greek.  Zeus,  or  Roman  Jupiter,  set  out  to 
seduce  maidens  he  generally  disguised  himself  as  some 
animal,  a  swan  when  he  approached  Leda,  a  bull  when 
he  carried  away  Europa,  and  an  eagle  in  other  cases. 

Vegetal  and  animal  symbolism,  however,  are  absolutely 
alike  in  legends  and  dreams.  Trees,  red  flowers,  hazel 
twigs,  mistletoe,  lily-stems,  poppy-seeds,  rice,  pomegran- 
ate, lions,  wolves,  frogs,  bears,  horses,  have  the  same 
meaning  in  both,  allowance  being  made  of  course  for  cli- 
matic conditions.  The  reasons  why  a  lion  replaces  a 
polar  bear  are  obvious. 

The  snake  seems  to  be  the  most  universal  symbol. 
The  Oda  story  has  its  counterpart  in  the  folklore  of  all 
nations. 

Oda's  father  goes  to  town  and  asks  Oda  what  he  shall 
bring  to  her.  "  Whatever  runs  under  your  carriage," 
she  answers.  The  father  brings  home  a  snake.  The 
snake  asks  to  be  let  into  Oda's  room,  then  into  Oda's  bed 
and  then  becomes  a  prince.  Variations  which  add  details 
from  the  Electra  or  Cinderella  stories  show  the  sexual 
and  egotistic  thread  running  through  them  all, 

Jung,  in  his  "  Psychology  of  the  Unconscious,"  has  ap- 
plied this  theory  to  mythology  and  primitive  religions  and 
proved  that  the  S}Tnbol  is  one  of  the  primary  elements, 
one  of  the  essential  modes  of  thought  of  the  human 
mind. 

The  fact  that  symbols  are  not  local  nor  restricted  to 
one  period  of  mankind's  life  has  a  profound  significance, 


THE   DREAMS   OF   THE    HUMAN    RACE  73 

knitting  together,  as  it  does,  all  the  races  mentally,  much 
as  their  physical  appearance  may  differ. 

While  individual  dreams  seldom  come  true,  the  race's 
dreams  seem  to  have  been  reaching  realization  in  the 
course  of  the  ages. 

The  dream  of  friendly  animals,  which  must  be  ex- 
tremely old,  has  come  true  through  the  domestication  of 
many  species. 

Inventions  have  followed  the  line  drawn  by  legends. 

The  dream  of  flying,  of  men  using  eagle-wings,  witches 
riding  broom-sticks,  magic  carpets,  winged  horses,  is  now 
a  reality,  the  flying  machine  embodying  many  of  these 
features. 

Magic  hoods,  which  enabled  men  to  dive  under  water 
or  to  affront  fire-spitting  dragons,  have  their  counterpart 
in  divers'  bells  and  caissons  and  in  gas-masks. 

Magic  tubes,  magic  mirrors,  magic  horns  which  en- 
abled legendary  heroes  to  see  distant  parts  of  the  world 
or  to  communicate  with  them  by  means  of  speech  have 
guided  inventors'  imaginations  to  the  discovery  of  tele- 
scopes, telephones,  etc. 

The  strength-giving  belts  have  enriched  fakirs  dealing 
in  electric  or  magnetic  belts.  The  magic  wand  and  the 
magnetic  needle  are  very  closely  related  one  to  the  other. 

Tonics  based  upon  strychnine  or  alcohol  are  the  semi- 
scientific  descendants  of  the  magic  draughts  of  old. 

A  searching  study  could  prove  that  almost  every  inven- 
tion has  been  unconsciously  inspired  by  some  superstition 
of  old. 

The  ethics  of  legends  are  on  a  par  with  the  ethics  of 
dreams. 


74  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

In  them  ego  and  sex  seek  their  satisfaction  and  obtain 
it  in  the  end,  sometimes  after  a  great  deal  of  "  anxiety," 
regardless  of  the  cost.  They  are  absolutely  asocial. 
The  hero  must  triumph  and  obtain  the  pleasure  and 
power  he  craves.  Every  other  interest  pales  in  compar- 
ison with  this.  Patricide,  incest,  deception,  foul  play, 
dishonesty,  cruelty,  point  to  an  archaic  mankind  in  which 
adaptation  to  life  in  communities  had  not  proceeded  very 
far. 

As  the  last  paragraph  of  "  Judges  "  says,  *'  In  those 
days  there  was  no  king  and  every  man  did  that  which  was 
right  in  his  eyes." 

Some  of  the  legends  evidently  antedate  any  religion 
connected  with  moral  sanctions,  for  remorse  is  absent 
and  no  punishment  ever  seems  to  befall  the  successful  but 
unethical  hero. 

It  was  only  later  that  life  in  common  began  to  develop 
tribal  ethics  such  as  are  expressed  in  the  Old  Testament, 
but  which  have  only  a  tribal  meaning,  the  injunction 
"  thou  shalt  not  kill  "  applying  only  to  members  of  the 
clan,  as  the  relation  of  the  expedition  of  Moses  in  the 
land  of  the  Midianites  proves  abundantly.  Any  atrocity 
was  permitted  against  strangers  to  the  clan. 

Few  are  the  legends,  however,  which  show  even  that 
modification  of  the  primal  savage  instincts. 

The  fact  that  symbols,  playing  such  an  important  part 
in  those  primitive  productions  of  the  human  mind,  seem 
to  rule  our  mental  functioning  is  worth  pondering.  Un- 
consciously we  are  primeval  beasts  and  nothing  animal  is 
foreign  to  us.  The  sculptor  who  decorated  the  Basel 
cathedral  with  a  statue  of  a  beautiful  woman,  the  reverse 
of  which  is  covered  with  a  wriggling  mass  of  snakes. 


THE    DREAMS    OF    THE    HUMAN    RACE  75 

toads,  lizards,   and  other  slimy  and  creeping  creatures, 
has  well  symbolized  human  nature. 

Civilization,  the  joint  product  of  the  ego  or  power  urge 
and  of  the  self-protection  urge,  has  placed  on  the  face 
of  mankind  a  polite,  self-controlled  countenance.  But 
back  of  that  facade  there  are  all  the  animal  instincts, 
struggling  for  expression,  and  coming  to  the  surface  of 
the  consciousness  in  the  shape  of  those  strange  symbolic 
animals.  However  modern,  angelic,  and  ethereal  the 
face  of  the  medal  may  be,  the  reverse  is  archaic  and  ani- 
mal. Toads  and  snakes  will  now  and  then  swim  to  the 
surface  of  the  pool  and  seek  a  breath  of  air. 

Individuals,  nations  or  races  dream,  and  therein  find 
their  greatest  compensation  for  all  the  things  they  crave 
and  cannot  attain. 

The  question  might  be  raised  as  to  whether  legends 
are  a  healthy  diet  for  young  minds.  Either  legends  are 
told  children  as  they  were  conceived  in  archaic  times  and 
are  thus  a  school  of  asocial,  criminal,  unethical,  oversexed 
behavior.  Or  they  are  edited  for  school  use  and  their 
vitality  is  removed. 

Even  then  it  is  doubtful  whether  children  should  be 
allowed  to  read  them  at  an  early  age.  Children  identify 
themselves  too  easily  with  the  heroes  of  fairy-tales,  just 
as  adults  did  in  primitive  races.  To  the  child  of  active, 
inventive,  aggressive  temperament  they  may  be  an  inspira- 
tion. To  the  dreamy  child  they  may  be  an  invitation  to 
follow  the  line  of  least  resistance,  to  dream  about  deeds 
instead  of  accomplishinfr  them,  to  wait  for  miracles,  fairy 
godmothers  and  the  like.  But  fairy-tales  are  excellent 
reading  for  grown-ups  with  a  sense  of  reality. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF    EVERYDAY  ACTIONS 

Freud  is  a  great  destroyer  of  shams,  and  a  study  of 
his  works  will  introduce  into  the  mental  make-up  of  the 
coming  generation  a  healthy,  scientific  scepticism.  It  will 
also  compel  psychologists  to  devote  more  time  and  atten- 
tion to  the  "  microscopic  "  elements  of  the  human  mind. 
No  bacillus  is  too  small  to  be  ignored  by  a  scientist;  no 
action  was  too  insignificant  to  be  ignored  by  Freud. 
Reviewing  critically  the  thousand  "  insignificant  "  inci- 
dents of  our  daily  life,  and  starting  from  the  premise 
that  there  is  no  effect  without  cause,  he  has  thrown  much 
light  upon  happenings  which  scientists  would  consider  as 
"  trifling,"  "  chance  actions,"  "  tricks  of  our  memory," 
which  sometimes  cause  us  to  ask,  "  Why  did  I  do  that?  " 
"Why  did  he  say  that?"  Our  wondering  is  generally 
of  short  duration  and  after  a  remark  such  as  "  Strange, 
isn't  it?  "  we  generally  forget  the  incident. 

Or  rather  we  think  we  forget  it,  as  the  hypnotized  sub- 
ject thinks  he  has  forgotten  the  "  trance  "  or  as  we  im- 
agine we  have  forgotten  our  childhood  and  infancy  ex- 
periences. 

In  reality  we  probably  never  forget  anything,  but  cer- 
tain memories  held  down  at  the  "  bottom  "  of  our  uncon- 
scious by  some  personal  complex  refuse  to  float  to  the 
surface  when  needed. 

Why  do  we  "  forget  "   names,     Because,   Freud   an- 

76 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   EVERYDAY  ACTIONS  77 

swcrs,  they  have  an  unpleasant  unconscious  connotation. 
The  name  of  a  pleasant  man,  of  a  fascinating  woman,  will 
not  have  to  be  repeated  to  us.  They  will  engrave  them- 
selves instantly  on  our  memory.  The  names  of  perfectly 
indifferent  people  will  sink  into  our  unconscious,  or  pass 
unnoticed  for  lack  of  attention.  The  names  of  those  who 
directly  or  indirectly  touch  some  painful  complex  in  our 
mind  are  unlikely  to  be  remembered. 

We  forget  easily  the  names  of  people  bearing  our 
name.  As  Freud  has  remarked,  we  cannot  help  experi- 
ence a  feeling  of  impatience  when  meeting  a  stranger  who 
bears  our  name. 

Our  ego  feels  a  certain  loss  when  someone  else  assumes 
one  of  the  elements  of  our  personality,  what  to  a  certain 
extent  has  been  an  asset  and  over  which  we  wish  to  retain 
a  monopoly.  It  is  very  rarely  that  a  man  called  Smith 
enters  into  very  friendly  relations  with  another  Smith. 

While   in   Mexico   City  I   became   acquainted  with   a 

man  bearing  my  family  name,  which  is  one  of  the  rarest 

in  existence.     I  was  as  unpleasantly  affected  at  first  as 

Freud  was  when  a  patient  called  S.  Freud  applied  for 

treatment.     I  made  several  appointments  with  him  which 

I  never  kept  and  finally  mislaid  his  address.     To  this  day, 

whenever  I  recollect  my  experiences  in  Mexico,  I  never 

think  of  that  Tridon  unless  I  make  a  special  effort  and  at 

times,  having  made  the  experiment  of  closing  my  eyes  and 

visualizing  his  appearance,  I  have  almost  entirely  failed. 

When  trying  to  visualise  his  printed  name,  I  generally 

I  see  his  first  name,  Leon,  followed  by  the  initial  T.   .   .   . 

I  The  rest  of  the  surname  always  appears  blurred  and  un- 

f  readable.      My  unconscious  evidently  allows  him  to  enjoy 

I  his  first  name  which  constitutes  no  infringement  of  my 


78  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ego's  pretensions  and  the  initial  T.  which  I  share  with 
miUions  of  others. 

When  we  know  two  men  by  the  same  name,  let  us  say 
John  Smith  and  George  Smith,  and  George  Smith  has  in 
some  way  incurred  our  enmity,  we  are  likely  to  think  of 
John  Smith  as  John,  not  as  Smith,  and  to  forget  at  times 
John's  family  name,  while  being  unable,  of  course,  to 
forget  his  Christian  name. 

Our  unconscious  hostility  to  a  certain  person  may  not 
be  due  to  any  inimical  act  done  by  that  person.  He  may 
in  some  way  recall  to  us  some  other  person  whom  we  are 
more  justified  in  disliking. 

We  often  confess  an  unexplainable  dislike-  for  a  man 
or  woman  who  is  to  all  appearances  amiable,  honest, 
courteous,  clever,  and  against  whom  we  could  not  bring 
any  charge  of  any  kind. 

"  There  is  something  in  him  I  don't  like."  That  some- 
thing may  be  a  mannerism,  the  color  of  his  hair,  the  cut 
of  his  moustache,  the  sound  of  his  voice,  none  of  which 
may  be  in  any  way  displeasing,  but  causes  in  us  an  uncon- 
scious association  with  some  offensive  person. 

As  soon  as  we  become  conscious  of  that  reminiscence, 
the  embarrassment  we  felt  in  that  person's  presence 
passes  away. 

Sudden,  unexplainable  lapses  of  memory,  such  as  our 
inability  to  recall  the  name  of  a  person  we  are  closely  and 
continually  associated  with,  can  be  traced  to  the  same 
cause. 

I  once  was  walking  along  the  street  with  a  man,  not 
only  very  well  known  to  me,  but  with  whom  I  had  spent 
two  hours  that  evening. 

We  met  another  acquaintance  of  mine  whom  I  had  not 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    EVERYDAY   ACTIONS  79 

seen  in  several  years.  The  newcomer's  name  came  at 
once  to  my  mind  but  I  had  for  several  minutes  to  forego 
presenting  him  to  my  other  friend,  as  the  other  man's 
name,  which  I  had  used  several  times  in  the  course  of  the 
evening,  kept  escaping  me.  Accustomed  to  analyze  my 
own  mental  states  rather  rapidly  in  such  cases,  I  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  I  did  not  wish  the  first  man  to  men- 
tion to  the  second  certain  activities  in  which  I  was  en- 
gaged. My  unconscious  mind  tried  to  avoid  that  even- 
tuality by  withholding  for  a  while  the  name  of  the  man 
bearing  my  "  secret." 

An  attempt  at  postponing  a  certain  disclosure  is  re- 
vealed by  the  form  of  narrative  that  begins  with  "  Do 
you  know?  "  "  Do  you  know  what  I  did?  "  "  Do  you 
know  whom  I  met  yesterday?  "  "  Do  you  know  what 
I  am  planning  to  do?  " 

This  preparation  generally  implies  a  slight  fear  of  dis- 
approval by  the  person  whom  we  address.  We  would 
prefer  not  to  mention  the  incident  but  we  choose  to  be 
the  first  to  tell  the  story.  While  our  mind  is  made  up  as 
to  the  necessity  of  the  revelation,  we  unconsciously  post- 
pone it  for  a  few  minutes  by  asking  the  other  person  to 
guess,  which  we  know  very  well  he  cannot  do. 

Physicians,  artists  and  other  professional  people  are 
apt  to  forget  the  names  of  other  people  in  their  profes- 
'sion,  owing  to  the  monopolistic  tendencies  of  their  ego. 

Unconsciously,  every  physician  considers  every  other 
physician  as  a  competitor  to  be  eliminated  and  so  does 
every  actor,  speaker,  scientist. 

I  make  it  a  practice  always  to  carry  with  my  lecture- 
notes  a  slip  on  which  I  have  written  the  names  of  the 
best  known   psychoanalysts   in   this   city.     Otherwise   I 


8o  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

might  be  as  embarrassed  as  I  was  one  night  when  the 
question  was  asked  me  by  someone  in  the  audience  and 
for  several  seconds  I  was  hard  put  to  it  to  mention  one 
name. 

Beware  of  people  who  cannot  remember  your  name. 
Either  they  bear  you  a  definite  grudge,  and  it  might  be 
to  your  interest  in  certain  cases  to  ascertain  the  motive 
for  their  attitude,  or  they  are  associating  you  uncon- 
sciously with  some  unpleasant  experience  of  their  life  with 
which  you  had  nothing  to  do. 

Name  forgetting  is  contagious.  Through  a  curious 
form  of  suggestion,  the  forgetting  of  a  name  by  one  of 
the  interlocutors  often  causes  the  same  amnesia  in  the 
other. 

I  mentioned  before  that  I  had  "  forgotten  "  several 
engagements  I  made  with  the  Mexican  Tridon.  If  his 
name  had  been  Smith  or  Brown,  I  would  probably  have 
kept  them.  The  absurd  but  unconscious  hostility  induced 
by  the  identity  of  our  names  made  me  forget  them. 

Darwin  advises  scientific  workers  to  note  carefully  all 
the  facts  which  contradict  their  pet  theory.  They  can 
easily  remember  all  the  positive  evidence  in  favor  of  it, 
but  will  as  easily  forget  whatever  is  opposed  to  it. 

I  have  found  it  necessary  to  refer  constantly  to  my 
notes  in  the  cases  of  subjects  who  caused  me  much  worry, 
and  whom  my  memory  of  their  symptoms  caused  me  to 
catalogue  too  hastily.  My  notes  have  often  revealed  to 
me  that  my  conclusions  based  on  my  memory  of  case  de- 
tails were  biased.  I  unconsciously  "  wished  "  the  patient 
to  belong  to  a  certain  category  and  "  forgot  "  many  symp- 
toms which  absolutely  prevented  the  fulfilment  of  that 
wish. 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   EVERYDAY   ACTIONS  8 1 

Analysts  must  be  on  their  guard  against  a  tendency  to 
**  resent  "  the  patient's  lack  of  response  to  certain  experi- 
ments. They  are  likely  to  blame  "  unconsciously  "  the 
patient  for  the  humiliation  their  ego  suffers  at  his  hands, 
for  their  unsuccessful  struggle  to  penetrate  his  mind. 
The  same  process  enables  us  to  lose  or  mislay  certain 
objects. 

Ernest  Jones  mentions  somewhere  that  he  is  in  the 
habit  of  mislaying  his  pipe  whenever  he  begins  to  feel 
the  effects  of  over-smoking.  A  few  days  later  the  pipe 
is  generally  found  in  some  curious  place  where  it  does  not 
belong,  and  where  his  unconscious  cleverly  prompted  him 
to  place  it. 

Lawyers  and  physicians  will  testify  to  the  readiness 
with  which  their  clients  and  patients  "  forget  "  important 
details  of  their  case.  Many  a  would-be  litigant,  who  at 
first  glance  had  a  "  case,"  was  discouraged  by  his  at- 
torney from  starting  an  action  because  some  "  insignifi- 
cant "  detail  he  had  not  mentioned  at  first  had  escaped 
his  mind.  Many  a  patient,  who  "  never  was  sick  be- 
fore," ends  by  revealing  to  the  physician  some  grave 
disease,  the  memory  of  which  had  been  temporarily  oblit- 
erated from  his  mind. 

We  are  more  likely  not  to  post  a  letter  containing  a 
check  than  one  containing  a  bill,  and  we  remember  our 
credits  more  clearly  than  our  debts. 

A  lover  who  misses  a  tryst  will  be  met  with  the  per- 
fectly legitimate  remark  that  a  year  before  he  would  not 
have  been  guilty  of  such  a  sin  of  omission.  It  is  rather 
risky  for  married  people  to  celebrate  too  sentimentally 
certain  anniversaries,  for  the  time  will  come  when  one  of 
them  is  bound  to  *'  forget  "  and  a  row  will  ensue. 


82  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

"  As  if  you  no  longer  loved  me  "  should  always  be 
translated,  "  because  you  no  longer  love  me."  In  life, 
as  in  dreams,  "  as  if  "  generally  means  "  because." 

In  George  Bernard  Shaw's  "  Caesar  and  Cleopatra," 
Caesar,  when  leaving  Egypt,  is  annoyed  by  the  thought 
that  there  is  something  he  has  neglected  to  do.  He 
finally  recalls  it :  he  forgot  to  take  leave  of  Cleopatra. 

The  military  code  draws  no  line  between  the  neglect  of 
duty  due  to  intentional  negligence  and  that  due  to  for- 
getfulness. 

Absent-minded  people  generally  excuse  their  lapses  by 
pretending  that  "  they  are  built  that  way."  They  forget 
many  promises,  disregard  directions,  and  prove  them- 
selves unreliable  in  many  small  things.  Their  uncon- 
scious motive,  however,  is  a  more  or  less  complete  dis- 
regard of  others. 

Ferenczi  states  that  his  absent-mindedness  disappeared 
when  he  began  to  practice  psychoanalysis,  and  thereby 
was  forced  to  turn  his  attention  to  peculiarities  of  his 
own  ego. 

According  to  Jones,  our  neglect  to  do  certain  things 
expected  of  us  betrays  a  sort  of  unconscious  resentment. 
Thus  a  very  busy  man  will  "  forget  "  to  mail  a  letter  en- 
trusted to  him  by  his  wife  or  to  carry  out  her  shopping 
orders. 

Freud  noticed  that  the  calls  which  he  would  forget  to 
make  in  his  day's  rounds  were  mainly  calls  on  free  pa- 
tients or  on  colleagues. 

I  avoid  carefully  public  telephones  which  are  not  sup- 
plied with  a  slot  system,  for  I  seldom  pay  the  operator 
after  receiving  the  communication  and  have  to  be  re- 
minded of  my  delinquency  by  the  page  on  duty. 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    EVERYDAY    ACTIONS  83 

We  forget  day  after  day  to  write  letters  likely  to  cause 
us  some  unpleasantness.  When  we  say  to  people, 
"  Don't  ask  me  to  do  this,  I  might  forget  it,"  some  un- 
conscious resistance  makes  us  feel  that  we  probably  would 
forget  it. 

Our  unconscious  is  fully  responsible  for  what  is  called 
our  mistakes  in  speech  or  slips  of  the  tongue.  Many  of 
those  mistakes  are  a  form  of  wish  fulfilment,  others  a 
revelation  of  some  obsession. 

When  a  prominent  statesman,  acting  as  chairman,  rises 
to  open  the  meeting  and  solemnly  declares  the  meeting 
adjourned,  we  know  what  his  unconscious  fatigue  is  yearn- 
ing for. 

A  woman  who  was  being  treated  for  syphilis  declared 
that  she  had  gone  to  the  theater  and  seen  "  Officer  606." 

A  floorwalker  Vv^ho  was  eyeing  a  pretty  woman,  while 
I  asked  him  to  direct  me  to  one  of  the  departments, 
answered  me  :     "  This  way.  Madam  !  " 

"  I  will  play  you  by  check,"  one  of  Dr.  Brill's  patients 
remarked  when  leaving  his  office.  The  patient  never 
came  back,  but  the  check  did. 

A  physician  said  to  a  patient,  "  I  hope  you  will  not 
be  able  to  leave  your  bed  soon." 

A  drug  clerk,  busy  preparing  a  cathartic,  said  to  a 
customer,  "  Wait  just  a  movement." 

A  conceited  specialist  said  in  the  course  of  a  lecture, 
"  Those  who  understand  the  subject  can  be  counted  0:1 
one  finger." 

When  John  is  making  love  to  Mary  and  "  by  mis- 
take "  calls  her  Ethel,  Mary  has  good  reasons  for  sus- 
pecting the  part  played  by  Ethel  in  John's  mind. 

Ernest  Jones  quotes  a  passage  from  Meredith's  "  The 


84  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Egoist  "  In  which  Clara,  by  a  slip  of  the  tongue,  betrays 
her  secret  wish  to  be  on  a  more  intimate  footing  with 
Vernon  Whitford.  Speaking  to  a  friend  she  says,  "  Tell 
Mr.  Vernon  .  .  .  tell  Mr.  Whitford."  After  one  of 
my  lectures  a  young  woman  sent  a  written  question  to 
the  platform,  asking  why  she  had  called  a  man  who  was 
"  almost  a  stranger  "  by  his  first  name  when  he  struck 
her  accidentally.  My  answer  was  that  she  was  in  love 
with  him.  Two  weeks  later  she  married  the  "  stran- 
ger."  .   .   . 

Snobs  cannot  be  trained  to  pronounce  names  correctly. 
This  is  their  petty  way  of  disparaging  people  they  meet 
and  of  proclaiming  their  insignificance. 

Writing  mistakes  are  due  to  the  same  causes.  When 
a  prominent  republican  statesman  died  recently,  the  news 
writer  of  a  Western  democratic  paper  committed  the 
following  blunder.  "  When  doctors  were  summoned  he 
was  fortunately  past  help." 

"  Owing  to  foreseen  circumstances,"  a  patient  wrote 
me,  "  I  cannot  keep  my  appointment."  The  syllable  un 
in  smaller  letters  was  then  added,  simply  making  the  in- 
tention more  obvious. 

"I  committed  this  indiscretion  15  years  ago,"  a 
woman  wrote  me,  who  wished  to  consult  me  on  her  case. 
The  figure  5  and  the  letter  s  had  been  added  afterward. 
Her  unconscious  was  more  honest  than  she. 

In  the  Wicked  Bible,  a  curious  edition  printed  in  Lon- 
don in  1 63 1,  the  negation  was  left  out  of  the  seventh 
commandment.     The  printer  was  punished,  but  for  the 

wrong  reason. 

Another  celebrated  biblical  misprint  is  one  to  be  found 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY    OF    EVERYDAY   ACTIONS  85 

in  the  Bible  of  the  Wolfenbuttel  library  in  which  a  pas- 
sage of  Genesis  reads:  "  Und  er  soil  dein  Narr  sein." 
(He  shall  be  thy  fool,")  instead  of  "  Er  soil  dein  Herr 
sein"   ("He  shall  be  thy  master"). 

Dr.  Kempf's  stenographer  had  been  for  several  days 
making  one  curious  mistake,  omitting  the  letter  "  s." 
Her  employer  asked  her,  to  her  great  dismay,  whom  she 
had  decided  to  drop,  whose  name  began  with  "  s."  She 
confessed  that  the  offending  friend's  name  was  Smith. 

Freud  reports  the  following  incident  concerning  Dr. 
Brill:  Although  a  teetotaler.  Dr.  Brill  one  night  was 
compelled  by  courtesy  to  take  a  little  wine.  The  next 
morning,  writing  to  a  patient  called  Ethel,  he  spelt  her 
name  Ethyl,  the  scientific  name  for  common  alcohol. 

Erroneous  actions  can  be  explained  in  the  same  way. 

Both  Freud  and  Maeder  noticed  that  when  reaching 
the  house  01  a  patient,  where  they  felt  especially  at  home, 
they  were  apt  to  take  out  of  their  pocket  the  key  to  their 
own  home  and  only  upon  reflection  finally  ring  the  bell. 

A  number  of  accidents  are  not  purely  accidental. 
They  are  what  Freud  designates  as  "  semi-intentional 
self-inflicted  injuries." 

Many  people  have  been  known,  after  receiving  bad 
news,  perhaps  hearing  of  the  death  of  some  dear  person, 
to  be  the  victims  of  some  slight  accident  for  which  no 
other  person  and  no  external  factor  could  be  held  re- 
sponsible, such  as  a  fall.  This  may  be  a  symbolical,  un- 
conscious, attempt  at  suicide.  In  ancient  times  some  self- 
inflicted  physical  injury  was  either  a  sign  of  mourning  or, 
as  practiced  by  the  flagellants,  an  expression  of  piety  and 
renunciation  of  the  world. 


86  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

In  other  cases  a  superstitious  person  or  one  tortured 
by  his  conscience  may  inflict  upon  himself  this  sort  of 
punishment. 

Dr.  J.  E.  G.  Van  Emden  reports  a  case  in  which  a 
woman  injured  herself  semi-accidentally  after  an  illegiti- 
mate operation. 

In  certain  cases  some  of  these  harmless  accidents  have 
been  followed  by  an  attack  of  neurosis,  hysterical  pains, 
etc.,  as  though  the  patient  were  supplementing  the  atone- 
ment by  a  graver  disturbance. 

Behind  many  accidental  shootings  of  oneself  or  others, 
an  analyst  could  easily  find  an  unconscious  death-wish. 

A  young  man  seldom  collides  on  the  side-walk  with  a 
man  or  an  old  woman. 

We  seldom  lose  anything  we  really  care  for  acid  when 
we  do,  some  masochistic  tendency  can  be  proved  to  be  at 
work  in  us. 

Freud  tells  of  meeting  a  young  married  couple  at  a 
summer  hotel,  and  the  next  morning  when  he  came  down 
stairs  he  was  invited  to  take  breakfast  with  them. 

He  joined  them  a  little  later  in  the  dining  room  and 
noticed  that  the  only  vacant  chair  at  the  table  was  covered 
by  the  man's  large  overcoat. 

Nor  did  the  young  husband  notice  that  Freud  was 
standing  before  the  table,  unable  to  take  his  seat.  It 
was  of  course,  the  wife,  who,  having  no  reason  for  ob- 
jecting to  the  presence  of  another  male,  asked  her  hus- 
band to  remove  the  obstruction. 

Very  frequently  people  take  the  wrong  train  when 
bound  for  an  unpleasant  destination. 

Adler,  Jung  and  Jones  have  shown  that  every  "  ob- 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   EVERYDAY   ACTIONS  87 

sessive  number  "  was  determined  very  clearly  by  some 
complex. 

It  has  been  observed  that  people  suffering  from  depres- 
sion or  suicidal  obses-sions  seldom  wind  up  their  watches 
and  let  the  clocks  in  their  houses  stop,  "  as  if  "  the  future 
no  longer  counted  for  them. 

Pfister  has  collected  several  Interesting  illustrations 
shov/ing  that  people  never  hum  "  aimless  "  tunes.  The 
tune  or  the  words  to  which  it  has  been  set  are  found  to  be 
in  direct  or  indirect  relation  to  the  subject's  thought  at 
the  time. 

The  worried  woman  who,  every  time  a  noise  is  heard 
on  the  street,  thinks  that  her  child  may  have  been  run 
over,  has  visualized  at  some  time  what  her  life  would  be 
if  the  child  in  question  had  not  been  born  or  was  out  of 
the  way.  Such  worries  correspond  closely  to  dreams  of 
the  death  of  near  relatives.  They  reveal  an  unconscious 
wish  and  fulfil  it  partly.  The  struggle  between  ego  and 
censor  is  severe,  however,  and  translates  itself,  so  to 
speak,  into  an  anxiety  day  dream. 

Superstitious  and  worried  people  are  almost  always 
punishing  themselves  unconsciously  for  harm  they  wished 
to  others.  The  superstitious  fear  retribution  of  some 
sort. 

According  to  Freud,  "  a  large  portion  of  the  mytho- 
logical conception  of  the  world  which  reaches  into  the 
mos-t  modern  religions  is  nothing  but  psychology  projected 
into  the  outer  world." 

The  Roman  who  gave  up  an  undertaking  because  he 
had  stumbled  on  the  threshold  when  leaving  his  house, 
was  unconsciously  right,  although  rationally  wrong.     The 


88  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

fact  of  stumbling  could  not  bring  about  the  failure  of 
his  undertaking.  Inner  doubts,  however,  may  have 
caused  that  chance  action,  and  those  inner  doubts  can  be 
considered  as  a  potent  cause  of  failure. 

Thus  we  see  that  egotistic,  jealous  or  hostile  thoughts 
repressed  by  the  censor  often  utilize  the  path  of  chance 
or  faulty  actions  to  affirm  their  existence.  Our  uncon- 
scious hypocrisy  thus  allows  many  unethical  feelings  to 
live  on  and  to  manifest  themselves;  thus  it  secures  com- 
pensation for  the  repression  to  which  those  impulses  have 
been  submitted  by  civilization,  education  and  the  self- 
protection  urge. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

FEMINISM   AND  RADICALISM 

When  we  study  feminism  and  radicalism,  it  Is  Adler 
rather  than  Freud  who  will  supply  us  with  our  vocabulary. 
For  both  movements  are  manifestations  of  the  ego  urge, 
and  a  compensation  for  restrictions  imposed  on  one  sex 
by  the  other  sex,  on  the  multitude  by  ruling  groups. 

There  may  be  feminists  and  radicals  who  dream  of 
more  favorable  conditions  for  the  satisfaction  of  their 
sexual  urge  in  a  society  based  upon  the  absolute  equality 
of  men  and  women,  or  under  a  social  system  guarantee- 
ing equal  opportunities  for  all  classes  of  the  population, 
but  that  consideration  Is  In  the  main  quite  secondary,  and 
neither  movement  can  be  said  to  constitute  an  outcrop- 
ping of  the  sex  urge  or  to  provide  a  compensation  for  Its 
repression. 

Both  movements  have  been  given  a  tremendous  impetus 
by  the  war.  Women  have  proved  to  themselves  and  to 
the  anti-feminists  that  they  could  undertake  almost  every 
one  of  the  tasks  which  until  then  had  been  considered  as 
especially  masculine.  A  woman  discharged  diplomatic 
duties  at  the  Brest-LItovsk  parleys.  Roszika  Schwimmer 
was  appointed  minister  plenipotentiary  for  the  Hun- 
garian republic.  Women  have  driven  steam  ploughs  and 
flying  machines;  they  have  proved  efficient  ammunition 
workers;  they  have  "  manned  "  trenches,  and  taken  part 
in  charges  under  Col.  Botshkareva. 

Workingmen  have  discovered,  by  watching  the  num- 

89 


90  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

berless  mistakes  committed  by  professional  statesmen  in 
every  one  of  the  war  emergencies,  that  direct  govern- 
ment by  the  masses  would  not  have  been  more  inefficient 
than  government  by  the  ruling  financial  and  Industrial 
interests. 

Women  know  now  they  can  do  anything  as  well  as  men 
would. 

Workingmen  know  that  employers  can  do  things  as 
badly  as  they  would  themselves. 

The  ego  of  the  women  and  of  the  masses  cannot  help 
deriving  powerful  encouragement  from  such  facts. 

Modern  society  is,  generally  speaking,  established  upon 
a  belief  in  masculine  superiority. 

That  belief  may  have  had  its  origin  In  the  infantile 
observations  as  to  the  physical  differences  between  sexes, 
the  male  child  feeling  himself  superior,  on  account  of  his 
exterior  genitals,  to  the  female  child,  who  might  for  the 
same  reason  feel  a  certain  inferiority. 

It  may  have  been  due  to  the  fact  that  the  female,  being 
periodically  placed  in  a  condition  of  physical  inferiority 
by  menstruation,  pregnancy  and  nursing,  was  gradually 
reduced  to  submission  by  the  physically  fitter  males,  al- 
though in  some  parts  of  the  world,  matriarchy  has  sub- 
sisted in  a  modified  form. 

That  physical  superiority  soon  had  as  its  corollary  as- 
sumed intellectual  superiority. 

The  dogma  of  masculine  domination  has  found  accept- 
ance with  the  majority  of  men  (although  its  vociferous 
proclamation  by  some  of  them  betrays  to  the  analyst  a 
lingering  doubt  and  the  need  of  reinforcing  a  shaky  be- 
lief), and  by  the  parasitic  type  of  women  known  as  anti- 
feminists. 


FEMINISM   AND   RADICALISM  9 1 

The  anti-feminist  is  in  reality  a  more  grasping  and 
ambitious  woman  than  the  feminist.  She  is  not  really 
satisfied  with  equality.  She  aims  at  securing  domination 
over  man  through  pure  sexual  fascination.  She  seeks 
to  secure  all  the  satisfaction  her  ego  craves  without  shoul- 
dering any  of  the  burdens  which  equality  would  entail. 
By  pretending  that  she  is  what  guileless  males  wish  her 
to  be,  she  enjoys  the  privileges  which  helpless,  dependent 
infants  are  granted  by  their  immediate  family  circle.  By 
alienating  some  of  her  freedom  she  secures  an  infinite 
amount  of  power.  By  accepting  a  few  conventional  re- 
strictions she  demands  infinite  allowances  for  a  thousand 
capricious  details  of  behavior. 

The  assumption  of  masculine  superiority  in  primitive, 
uncivilized  man  was  a  practical  device  for  securing  more 
work  from  the  female.  In  modern  woman  it  implies  a 
disreputable  sophistry  and  mental  dishonesty. 

The  parasitic  woman,  who  is  satisfied  with  power  easily 
secured  and  has  no  creative  tendency,  may  reconcile  her- 
self easily  to  the  masculine  domination. 

The  active,  intelligent,  energetic,  positive  type,  whose 
self-assertive  ego  is  not  satisfied,  except  through  positive 
achievement,  chafes  under  the  many  restraints  which  that 
domination  imposes  upon  her. 

These  restraints  may  drive  many  of  them  into  acts  of 
an  unconscious  nature,  which,  while  not  pathologically 
very  abnormal,  have  a  neurotic  tinge,  and  a  sexual  aspect. 
Some  women  revolt  so  completely  against  the  social 
subjection  to  which  their  union  with  a  male  would  subject 
them  that  their  sexual  powers  decline  or  apparently  die 
out  and  they  make  frigid  wives. 

Some  develop  neurotic  attacks  before  the  time  set  for 


92  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

their  marriage,  take  refuge  In  a  neurosis  against  an  act 
which  they  both  desire  and  fear  and  join  the  ranks  of 
old  maids. 

Some  display  a  capricious  or  harsh  behavior  toward  the 
husband  or  lover  as  a  protection  against  their  own  feel- 
ings which,  if  shown  too  openly,  might  fortify  his  domina- 
tion. 

Some  select  a  partner  who  is  socially,  physically  or  In- 
tellectually below  their  social  level  (heiresses  marrying 
chauffeurs)  which  enables  them  to  remain  the  influential 
if  not  dominant  member  of  the  family. 

Some  resort  to  homosexualism  to  emancipate  them- 
selves from  man  in  sexual  matters. 

In  certain  social  gatherings  the  egotistical  female  easily 
becomes  a  kill-joy  when  her  superiority  is  endangered  by 
the  presence  of  other  attractive  women.  When  sur- 
rounded by  men,  or  when  the  other  women  present  are 
old  and  unattractive,  she  is  generally  a  fascinating  con- 
versationalist. When  made  conscious  of  her  inferiority, 
she  is  not  unlikely  to  bring  about  some  unpleasant  incident 
or  to  develop  some  hysterical  sickness. 

Some  women  show  a  marked  fondness  for  mannish  ap- 
parel, masculine  traits,  short  hair,  smoking,  brusque  man- 
ners. The  late  Dr.  Mary  Walker  was  a  typical  illus- 
tration of  the  masculine  protest  in  public  life. 

The  conception  of  what  is  essentially  feminine  or  mas- 
culine is  rather  hazy.  In  Samson's  days  or  at  the  time 
of  the  Merovingian  kings,  the  virile  character  was  pro- 
claimed by  a  flowing  mane,  and  even  to  this  day  the 
judges  in  English  courts  wear  long,  curly  wigs.  Chinese 
women  wear  trousers,  Scotch  warriors  and  some  Greek 


FEMINISM   AND   RADICALISM  93 

shepherds  wear  petticoats.  Even  modesty,  which  is  con- 
sidered as  a  typically  feminine  virtue,  has  been  observed 
by  analysts  to  be  characteristic  of  neurotics  of  the  under- 
sexed  or  oversexed  kind,  the  former  being  conscious  of 
that  inferiority,  and  avoiding  all  occasions  which  might 
lead  them  to  reveal  the  embarrassing  fact,  the  latter 
avoiding  also  all  occasions  in  which  they  might  become 
victims  of  their  temperament. 

Here  we  have  that  constant  combination  of  the  ego 
and  sex  urges  which  neither  orthodox  Freudism  nor  ortho- 
dox Adlerism  could  explain  satisfactorily. 

The  masculine  domination,  pleasing  as  it  may  be  to 
some  males  of  the  domineering  type  and  giving  them  some 
dubious  assurance  as  to  the  females'  sexual  behavior,  re- 
sults in  many  forms  of  waste. 

Much  light  work  could  be  done  by  women,  thus  re- 
lieving men  for  more  strenuous  occupation  (jury  duty 
being  one  of  the  most  obvious  examples). 

Women  over  45  who  have  raised  their  children  and 
established  their  household  on  a  well  systematized  basis 
which  practically  requires  no  more  planning  or  personal 
intervention,  could,  with  the  knowledge  of  psychology 
they  gathered  while  educating  their  children,  the  practi- 
cal information  acquired  while  attending  to  household 
financing  and  provisioning,  render  many  public  services 
where  their  specialized  knowledge  would  be  of  high  value. 
Instead  of  that  they  dribble  their  time  away  sponsoring 
more  or  less  emotional  movements,  taking  part  in  club 
squabbles,  or,  in  country  districts,  trying  hundreds  of  fake 
cures  for  imaginary  or  hysterical  ailments. 

In  several  states  teachers  are  not  allowed  to  marry  and 


94  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

only  abnormal  old  maids,  ignorant  of  life,  are  allowed 
to  spread  their  distorted  views  among  the  growing  gen- 
eration. 

The  mediocre  woman,  without  visible  ability,  is  forced 
by  the  masculine  domination  into  the  great  dependent, 
parasitic  class  of  "  mere  wives  and  mothers,"  in  which 
class  they  linger  for  many  years  after  they  have  ceased 
to  bear  children  or  to  satisfy  their  husband's  desire  for 
affection  and  sexual  intercourse. 

The  masculine  domination,  harmful  to  the  female,  is 
supposed  to  have  been  an  unmixed  blessing  for  the  male. 

It  has,  on  the  contrary,  created  a  most  unpleasant  state 
of  affairs.  It  has  created  the  superstition  of  woman,  the 
enigma,  the  sphinx  or  the  vampire. 

The  average  man  has  been  taught  that  woman  is  "  dif- 
ferent." 

Being  different,  she  cannot  be  expected  to  act  under 
given  circumstances  as  a  man  would  act  under  the  same 
circumstances.  "  lou  can't  tell  what  a  woman  is  likely 
to  do."  If  she  does  act  as  a  man  would,  she  falls  under 
the  suspicion  of  being  unnatural  or  mannish. 

To  the  weak,  unintelligent  male,  woman  is  a  mysterious 
being,  half  goddess,  half  idiot,  of  whom  he  is  uncon- 
sciously afraid.  We  always  grow  afraid  of  the  gods 
we  create. 

This  relation  is  disastrous  in  a  good  many  ways. 
Afraid  of  woman,  the  weak  man  who  wants  to  sustain 
the  masculine  domination  employs  neurotic  ways  of  sub- 
duing her,  of  humiliating  her. 

The  nagging  husband,  the  man  who  surrounds  his  wife 
with  very  inferior  companions,  the  pudic  husband  who 
tries  to  keep  her  in  ignorance  about  sexual  matters,  the 


FEMINISM    AND    RADICALISM  95 

onanist,  the  homosexual,  are  indirect  victims  of  the  super- 
stition of  masculine  superiority  of  which  they  are  the 
warmest  champions. 

To  many  a  weak,  inferior  man,  the  assumption  of  the 
mysterious  character  of  woman  is  a  positive  boon,  a 
plausible  excuse  for  many  failures.  "  A  fool  there  was," 
and  he  would  have  probably  been  a  failure  under  any 
circumstances.  Given  an  irresistible  woman,  for  whose 
"  wiles  "  an  ordinary  man  is  "  no  match,"  and  the  de- 
feated ego,  unable  to  enjoy  success,  can  enjoy  sympathy. 

Literature  has  reflected  that  curious  phobia. 

Eve  was  a  convenient  excuse  for  Adam's  downfall. 
The  Iliad  is  built  upon  the  same  assumption,  of  ruin  being 
brought  about  by  woman;  also  the  Arabian  nights,  and 
numberless  poems  and  plays.  "  Seek  the  woman  "  ex- 
presses that  phobia  in  popular  form.  Baudelaire  has 
very  naively  given  it  expression  in  that  passage  in  which 
he  says,  "  I  cannot  think  of  a  beautiful  woman  without 
imagining  at  the  same  time  some  misfortune  connected 
with  her."  Schopenhauer's  and  Strindberg's  obsessional 
ideas  concerning  women  were  undoubtedly  manifesta- 
tions of  a  feeling  of  inferiority  which,  by  reviling  woman, 
sought  to  explain  away  every  defeat  in  the  "  unequal 
struggle  "  with  the  sphinx-woman. 

The  masculine  domination  is  responsible  for  the  large 
class  of  "  disappointed  "  husbands  and  wives.  The  gul- 
lible male  who  expects  to  find  in  his  wife  the  mysterious 
creature  popularized  by  plays  and  fiction  and  to  derive 
from  her  the  constant  stimulation  such  a  type  is  supposed 
to  provide,  cannot  live  long  with  her  without  discovering 
that  she  is  quite  as  commonplace  as  he  is  himself  and 
quite  as  human. 


96  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

The  gullible  female  who  expects  to  lean  against  a  pillar 
of  moral  and  physical  strength,  to  receive  from  her  hus- 
band wise  and  infallible  guidance  in  all  human  affairs, 
soon  finds  out  that  her  hero  is  as  uninteresting  and  as 
unromantic  as  she  herself  is,  and  that  his  superiority  has 
to  be  constantly  re-affirmed  through  many  arbitrary  ac- 
tions, high-handed  judgments,  terrorism  and  nagging. 

As  Freud  would  put  it,  these  people  have  been  living 
a'bove  their  means  psychologically.  They  have  been 
drawing  checks  upon  a  bank  in  which  they  themselves 
deposited  nothing,  but  in  which  they  assumed  without 
any  evidence  that  their  partner  had  deposited  large  sums. 

Their  disappointment  is  a  clever  compensation  sought 
by  their  ego  which  is  unable  in  any  other  way  to  demon- 
strate its  positive  superiority.  "  I  have  been  disap- 
pointed by  my  wife  or  my  husband,"  really  means,  "  My 
wife  or  my  husband  does  not  come  up  to  me." 

The  disappointed  partner  ostensibly  deplores  his  mate's 
inferiority,  but  secretly  enjoys  it,  as  it  gives  him  or  her 
a  certain  security.  The  stupid,  bourgeois  wife  is  in 
great  demand  among  males  who  are  not  positively  sure  of 
their  superiority,  and  the  "  tame  "  husband,  easily  con- 
trolled and  unattractive  to  other  females,  is  constantly 
proclaimed  by  the  average  woman  a  very  desirable  part- 
ner. 

The  spread  of  feminism  may  remove  the  many  pho- 
bias which  render  the  relations  between  man  and  woman 
always  difficult  and  some  times  frankly  unpleasant. 
Man  the  tyrant,  and  woman  the  sphinx,  real  enough 
types  ( for  many  men  strive  to  be  tyrannical  and  many 
women  affect  to  be  capricious  and  erratic,  In  order  to  live 


FEMINISM   AND   RADICALISM  97 

up  to  some  novel,  play  or  film),  would  fchen  be  relegated 
to  the  realm  of  old-fashioned  fiction. 

The  ego  urge  which  drives  human  beings  constantly  to 
seek  a  new  and  higher  level,  to  better  or,  at  least,  to 
modify  their  environment  in  a  way  which  bears  the  stamp 
of  their  personality,  is  the  most  potent  driving  power 
back  of  the  vague  tendency  called  radicalism. 

I  call  it  vague,  for  its  meaning  has  been  changing  with 
every  century,  and  so  has  its  object. 

He  who  once  revolted  against  the  authority  of  gods 
represented  by  a  priestly  hierarchy  of  som,e  sort,  was  tor- 
tured or  put  to  death  as  a  dangerous,  subversive  charac- 
ter. The  libertarians  of  the  i8th  century  who  claimed 
little  more  than  freedom  of  thought  in  a  few  religious  and 
secular  matters,  were  already  characterised  as  wild-eyed 
radicals.  In  1825  several  hundred  people  were  put  to 
death  in  Russia  for  having  read  at  secret  gatherings  the 
writings  of  the  French  Encyclopaedists. 

During  the  French  revolution  of  1789,  people  risked 
their  lives  to  set  up  the  autocracy  of  a  wealthy  bourgeosle 
Instead  of  the  autocracy  of  a  king  and  a  few  noble  fam- 
ilies. 

Ultra-radical  in  their  days,  those  people  would  appear 
in  our  day  hopelessly  conservative.   .   .   . 

But  they  all  had  a  dream  of  a  new  social  order,  giving 
them  more  freedom,  by  which  they  meant,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  more  food  and  power.  And  each  succes- 
sive revolution  meant  that  a  larger  number  of  egoes  had 
dreams  of  power  and  wrested  it  from  the  smaller  num- 
ber of  egoes  detaining  it  at  the  time. 

And  the  radicals  of  all  times  were  opposed  by  the  enor- 


98  PSYCHOANALYSIS     - 

mous  sluggish  masses  of  people  without  imagination, 
suffering  from  neophobia,  the  fear  of  new  things,  be- 
cause, unable  to  dream,  they  could  not  Imagine  adapting 
themselves  to  a  new  order  of  things. 

If  the  established  Institutions  were  suddenly  removed, 
the  dreamless  people,  whose  ego  finds  a  simple  satisfac- 
tion in^  social  prestige,  the  ownership  of  a  house  or  a 
motor  car,  membership  in  a  certain  club  or  a  certain 
church  would  feel  as  helpless  as  the  bather  unable  to 
swim,  if  the  rope  were  suddenly  removed.  If  all  those 
little  things  which  are  the  symbols  of  their  power  and  of 
their  superiority  over  other  people  less  favored  than  they, 
should  disappear,  they  would  feel  as  distressed  as  though 
they  stood  naked  in  public. 

Those  people  are  useful  members  of  the  body  social 
because,  for  their  sake,  every  Innovation,  social,  political 
and  otherwise,  has  to  be  tested  thoroughly  and  made 
plausible,  thus  eliminating  wild  experiments  likely  to 
bring  ruin  to  the  race. 

They  are  likely,  howev^er,  to  call  the  radical  a  neurotic 
because  he  insists  on  substituting  the  electric  locomotive 
for  the  stage  coach  and  the  wireless  for  the  marathon 
runner. 

Some  form  of  "  radicalism "  moved  primitive  man 
to  be  dissatisfied  with  his  purely  vegetative,  animal,  exist- 
ence, and  to  modify  his  environment  by  adorning  his  cave, 
his  person,  and  taming  wild  animals. 

Later  some  primitive  radical,  dissatisfied  with  man's 
physical  limitations  and  his  short  span  of  life,  created 
gods  with  unlimited  power  and  duration,  with  whom  he 
established  some  relationship,  through  sexual  relations 
between  gods  and  the  daughters  of  men. 


FEMINISM    AND    RADICALISM  99 

Later,  jealous  of  the  gods'  power,  he  invested  power- 
ful members  of  the  tribe  with  some  of  that  power. 

Gradually,  as  egoes  multiplied,  chiefs  were  compelled 
to  share  their  power  and  food  supply  with  smaller  chief- 
tains, these,  in  turn,  with  their  more  powerful  subjects. 
Finally,  in  more  recent  times,  the  multitude  insisted  on 
putting  its  stamp  of  approval  on  rulers  chosen  from  time 
to  time.     And  thus  republics  were  born. 

When  every  ego  in  the  multitude,  however,  desired  to 
express  its  direct  opinion,  the  representative  who  prom- 
ised to  do  good  things  for  his  constituency  began  to  yield 
the  stage  to  the  representative  appointed  by  the  crowd 
to  do  a  certain  thing.  And  thus  theoretical  bolshevism 
came  into  being. 

Justice  and  brotherhood  are  convenient  words  used 
by  radicals  who  are  as  ashamed  as  conservatives  to  con- 
fess their  ego  cravings. 

The  radical  who  worries  lest  his  special  social  nostrum 
should  not  be  tried  out  during  his  life-time  is  as  gro- 
tesque a  figure  as  the  conservative  who  believes  that  the 
progress  of  the  world  toward  its  unknown  goal  can  be 
stopped  at  one  certain  point. 

Both  wish  to  stop  the  world's  progress,  though  at  dif- 
ferent levels. 

Political  creeds  are  determined  by  the  degree  of  sadism 
or  masochism  entering  into  the  ego  formula. 

The  sadist  ego,  willing  to  inflict  harm  upon  numbers 
of  people,  provided  he  has  the  approval  of  very  large 
numbers  of  influential  persons,  is  likely  to  be  a  conserva- 
tive. 

The  masochist  who  is  willing  to  submit  to  a  certain 
amount   of  suffering,   provided  his   ego   can   realize   its 


100  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

dreams,  who  is  satisfied  with  the  approval  of  cgoes  of  his 
type,  and  is  wilHng  to  take  suffering  and  the  martyrdom 
his  behavior  often  impHes  as  a  reward  for  his  activity,  is 
likely  to  join  the  ranks  of  the  radicals. 

Industrial  developments  of  the  present  day  are  directly 
responsible  for  acute  outbreaks  of  the  ego  urge  in  the 
shape  of  radical  agitation.  There  is  nothing  in  the  daily 
life  of  a  modern  factory-worker  which  gives  adequate  out- 
let for  his  egotism  and  craving  for  personal  achieve- 
ment. The  shoemaker  of  500  years  ago  who  performed 
personally  every  task  connected  with  the  making  of  foot- 
gear, from  the  preparation  of  a  hide  to  taking  measure- 
ments, fitting  the  leather  to  the  actual  foot-shapes  of  his 
customers,  could  display  his  personality,  his  originality, 
his  caprice  even,  in  creating  personal  footwear  such  as  we 
see  in  museums.  A  completed  pair  of  shoes  was  a  per- 
sonal evidence  of  his  creative  ability,  and  flattered  his 
pride  accordingly. 

The  men  and  women  employed  in  modern  shoe  fac- 
tories, who  simply  release  a  hundred  times  a  day  one 
lever,  stopping  or  starting  some  electrically  driven  ma- 
chine-tool, perform,  day  after  day,  monotonous  tasks, 
of  a  fragmentary  character.  Not  one  of  them  ever  sees 
more  than  a  part  of  a  shoe.  Those  who  assemble  the 
parts  had  no  share  in  the  producing  of  those  parts. 

Those  who  do  not  turn  to  creative  art  of  some  sort 
in  order  to  compensate  for  that  repression  of  their  ego 
urge,  are  bound  to  be  dissatisfied  with  their  work,  with 
the  environment  which  gives  them  that  work,  with  the 
social  system  under  which  that  work  is  performed,  and 
nothing  but  a  direct  share  in  the  shaping  of  their  political 
and  economic  destiny  will  satisfy  them. 


FEMINISM   AND    RADICALISM  lOI 

We  have  reached  politically  the  age  of  direct  govern- 
ment, direct  nomination,  direct  primaries,  direct  action. 

And  here  again  the  war  may  wield  a  far-reaching  in- 
fluence. V 

That  dissatisfaction  was  either  restrained  by  accepted 
ethical  principles  (although  I.  W.  W.  leaders  have  been 
wont  to  state  that  "  we  shall  do  those  things  because  we 
can")  or  it  expressed  itself  in  ways  according  with  the 
general  ethical  views  of  the  community.  To  quote  from 
Freud's  "  Reflections  on  War  and  Death  ": 

"  The  individual  citizen  can  prove  with  dismay  that 
the  State  forbids  him  to  do  wrong,  not  because  it  wishes 
to  do  away  with  wrongdoing,  but  because  it  wishes  to 
monopolize  it.  ...  A  State  at  war  makes  use  of  every 
act  of  violence,  that  would  dishonor  the  individual.  It 
employs  not  only  permissible  cunning  but  conscious  lies 
and  intentional  deception  against  the  enemy,  .  .  .  de- 
mands the  utmost  obedience  and  sacrifice  of  its  citizens, 
but  at  the  same  time,  it  treats  them  like  children  through 
an  excess  of  secrecy  and  a  censorship  of  news  and  ex- 
pression of  opinion  which  render  the  minds  of  those  who 
are  thus  intellectually  repressed  defenseless  against  every 
unfavorable  situation  and  every  wild  rumor.  It  absolves 
itself  from  guaranties  and  treaties  by  which  it  was  bound 
to  other  states,  and  makes  unabashed  confession  of  Its 
greed  and  aspiration  to  power." 

As  the  expression  "  social  war "  is  found  more  and 
more  frequently  in  the  literature  of  the  various  radical 
movements,  one  can  see  what  developments  may  be  ex- 
pected from  the  constant  growth  of  the  ego  urge  among 
the  masses,  and  the  ethical  corruption  due  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  war's  "  emergency  practices."     "  Thou  shalt 


102  FSYCHOANALYSIS 

not  kill "  has  been  brought  back  to  the  meaning  it  really 
had  in  the  Old  Testament,  where  that  prohibition  ap- 
plied solely  to  members  of  the  tribe,  any  atrocity  being 
lawful  when  perpetrated  on  a  member  of  a  different  tribe. 
See  "  Numbers  "  and  "  Chronicles,"  and  the  treatment 
meted  out  to  the  Midianites  by  Moses'  armies. 

The  social  war  means,  in  terms  stripped  of  any  orna- 
ments, that  a  growing  number  of  egoes  is  going  to  con- 
tend for  the  ownership  of  the  earth  with  a  diminishing 
number  of  egoes. 

Upon  the  willingness  of  the  minority  to  resign  itself 
to  unavoidable  defeat  or  its  attempt  to  postpone  the 
fatal  hour  by  resorting  to  unethical  methods  of  warfare, 
whose  efficiency  is  tremendous  but  only  temporary,  will 
depend  the  questions  whether  the  growth  of  the  ego  urge 
at  the  present  juncture  will  mean  evolution  or  revolution. 

Whenever  discussing  the  role  which  the  ego  plays  in 
social  disturbances  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  ego 
urge  was  in  the  beginning  a  nutrition  urge  and  that  scar- 
city of  food  has  always  led  to  upheavals. 

In  times  of  famine  the  nutrition-ego  urge  asserts  its 
predominance  over  the  sex  urge  and  the  safety  urge. 

When  the  individual  is  hungry,  sex  prostitutes  itself  to 
insure  the  food  supply,  and  the  safety  urge  allows  the 
individual  to  risk  physical  injury  in  order  to  prevent  the 
organism's  death  through  starvation. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   WIT 

Before  Freud's  days,  dreams  were  pure  nonsense,  and 
so  was  nonsense.  A  few  essays  had  been  written  on 
the  psychology  of  laughter,  but  no  philosopher  or  scientist 
had  assumed  the  apparently  frivolous  task  of  collecting 
jokes  and  meditating  seriously  upon  them. 

Wit,  as  analyzed  by  Freud,  may  still  be  the  mere  foam 
and  froth  of  life.  But  even  as  the  bubbles  that  rise  to 
the  surface  of  sparkling  wine  start  from  the  very  bottom 
of  the  glass,  wit  bubbles  originate  at  the  unconscious  bot- 
tom of  our  mind.-*^ 

Like  every  messenger  from  our  unconscious,  wit  will  be 
found  to  have  a  tremendous  import.  We  shall  see  that 
it  is  indeed  one  of  life's  safety  valves,  one  of  the  "  nor- 
mal "  forms  of  "  compensation." 

The  unconscious  character  of  wit  is  amply  demon- 
strated by  the  fact  that  wit  is  not  constantly  at  our  com- 
mand. We  cannot,  or,  at  least  very  few  of  us  can,  take 
up  pen  and  ink  and  "  write  jokes  "  as  we  would  write 
a  letter  or  a  magazine  article. 

We  cannot  even,  unless  we  have  made  special  prepara- 
tions, in  the  way  of  mnemotechnic  drill,  recall  at  will  a 
string  of  jokes  when  we  need  them  for  the  sake  of  social 
jollity.  In  fact,  while  waiting  for  our  turn  to  entertain 
our  friends  with  jokes,  we  are  apt  to  forget  entirely, 
sometimes  for  a  long  while,  the  witticism  we  were  plan- 
ning to  offer  as  our  contribution. 

103 


I04  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

On  the  other  hand,  a  syllable,  a  sound,  a  gesture,  a 
peal  of  laughter,  may  suddenly  conjure  up  to  our  mem- 
ory a  story  or  a  number  of  stories,  the  telling  of  which  is 
usually  preceded  by  the  remark,  "  That  reminds  me 
of  ..." 

A  whole  class  of  wit  products,  puns,  are  nothing  but 
sound  associations,  involuntary  and  unconscious. 

As  a  further  proof  of  the  unconscious  origin  of  wit, 
we  may  adduce  Freud's  comparison  between  the  technique 
of  dreams  and  the  technique  of  wit. 

There  is  a  striking  parallelism  between  wit-work  and 
dream-work,  both  presenting  the  same  phenomena  of  con- 
densation, displacement,  indirect  expression,  representa- 
tion through  the  opposite,  etc. 

As  examples  of  wit  condensation,  Freud  mentions, 
among  others,  the  name  Cleopold,  by  which  the  late  king 
of  Belgium,  Leopold,  became  known  in  the  smart  circles 
of  Europe  when  he  began  to  pay  attentions  to  the  French 
dancer,  Cleo.  De  Quincey,  to  intimate  that  people  in 
their  old  age  are  overfond  of  telling  anecdotes,  wrote  that 
old  folks  were  apt  to  fall  into  "  anecdotage."  Holidays 
during  which  much  alcohol  is  consumed  are  designated  by 
a  writer  as  *'  alcoholidays." 

Wit  makes  efficient  use  of  the  same  material  to  express 
various  meanings:  "  Is  your  wife  entertaining  this  win- 
ter?" "Not  very,"  the  husband  answered.  A  sign 
seen  in  many  small  stores  reads:  "In  God  we  trust. 
Everybody  else  pays  cash." 

Displacement,  in  wit  as  in  dreams,  stars  an  insignifi- 
cant detail  at  the  expense  of  the  main  thought: 

"  That  fire  escape  makes  your  boarding  house  quite 
safe." 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   WIT  I05 

"  Yes,"  the  landlady  answered,  "  when  all  the  boarders 
are  paid  up." 

Representation  through  the  opposite  may  be  illustrated 
by  the  following  joke  : 

*'  Can  you  call  up  ghosts?  "  someone  asked  an  amateur 
conjurer. 

"  I  can,  but  they  won't  come," 

Indirect  expression  is  the  technical  wit-means  employed 
In  the  remark  attributed  to  an  art  critic  who  saw  the 
portraits  of  two  money-kings  occupying  a  panel  at  an  art 
exhibition : 

"  Where  is  Jesus?  " 

Two  important  questions  must  be  answered:  Why  do 
we  make  up  jokes,  and  why  do  we  laugh  at  them? 

We  may  answer  the  first  by  saying  that  wit  is  a  short 
cut  to  freedom  from  many  restrictions. 

Children  discover  at  an  early  age  that  they  can  do 
many  forbidden  things  if  they  succeed  in  making  their 
parents  or  teachers  laugh.     The  parent,  however  severe, 
who  can  be  compelled  to  smile,  is  no  longer  to  be  feared 
as  a  disciplinarian.     Likewise,   nonsense   frees  us   from 
many  restrictions  and  enables  us  to  speak  out  "  in  jest  " 
many  a  truth  which  otherwise  would  cause  much  resent 
ment  on  the  part  of  the  hearers.      College  rituals,  song 
and  yells,   defend  the   freedom  of  nonconformist  yout 
against  institutional  regulations  and  academic  "  dignity. 
Hazing  provides  an  outlet  for  whatever  infantile  sadis; 
or  exhibitionism  is  still  unrepressed  in  the  adolescent. 

"  Only  a  child,"  or  "  boys  will  be  boys,"  or  "  student 
pranks  "  are  the  common  excuses  invoked  by  actors  ar 
beholders  in  such  cases. 

In  the  same  fashion  do  we  dismiss  the  licentious  c 


Io6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

lawless  acts  we  perform  in  our  sleeping  state:  "  only  a 
dfeam." 

Between  dreams  and  wit  there  is,  however,  a  capital 
difference:  wit  is  a  social  phenomenon,  dreams  are  es- 
sentially asocial.  The  dreamer  creates  his  own  world, 
where  he  rules  almost  autocratically;  he  occupies  the 
center  of  the  stage  and  has  no  regard  for  any  other  human 
being  playing  a  part  in  the  dream  phantasy.  Wit,  on  the 
contrary,  depends  for  its  life  on  a  favorable  and  friendly 
environment. 

A  joke  at  the  expense  of  Christian  Science  would  fall 
flat  if  told  before  an  audience  of  Christian  Scientists  and 
would  only  bring  embarrassment  to  the  jokester.  The 
jokester  needs  the  support  of  his  audience. 

Certain  jokes  would  be  absolutely  colorless  if  they 
were  not  spoken  before  a  large  crowd.  A  "  conver- 
sationalist "  once  convulsed  a  large  house  by  simply  saying 
to  every  girl  in  the  show:  "  Good  morning.  Madam,  how 
do  you  do  it?  "  Only  In  a  vast  agglomeration  of  human 
beings  would  the  various  suggestions  with  which  that 
phrase  was  charged  conjure  enough  associations  to  con- 

u<5titute  wit. 

a     One  joke  may  cause  great  merriment  when  spoken  be- 
ore  a  crowd  of  men,  and  seem  stupid  and  offensive  should 

vi  refined  woman  be  present. 

te    Among  common  men  and  women,  wit  becomes  less  and 

se^ss  subtle  and  descends  to  lower  and  lower  intellectual 

E^vels.     A  group  of  drunkards  may  consider  any  filthy 
emark  as  extremely  humorous. 

ca    In  other  words,  the  quality  of  a  joke  depends  on  the 
umber  of  people  to  whom  it  gives  pleasure,  i.  e.,  relief 

sarom  certain  restrictions,  and  this  is  why  we  very  hypo- 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   WIT  I07 

critically  pretend  to  scorn  puns  and  to  consider  them  as 
a"n  unworthy  display  of  humor. 

The  pun  is  indeed  a  childlike  form  of  wit,  for  punning 
is  the  favorite  pastime  of  all  infants  who  are  learning 
to  speak.  They  take  words,  names,  sounds  and  repeat 
them,  modifying  them  all  the  while  and  enjoying  the  in- 
voluntary associations  which  the  newly  formed  words 
bring  forth.  The  pun  is  an  involuntary  and  very  per- 
sonal form  of  sound  association.  It  does  not  bring  re- 
lief to  anyone  unless  there  is,  by  chance,  among  the 
hearers  one  person  reacting  exactly  like  the  punster  to 
the  syllable  that  inspires  the  pun.  Deriving  no  pleasure 
from  anyone  else's  puns,  we  affect  to  despise  them,  al- 
though we  show  partiality  for  our  own. 

The  higher  the  intelligence  of  the  hearers,  the  more 
subtle  the  wit-work  will  have  to  be.  With  people  sub- 
jected to  many  mental  inhibitions,  one  of  the  most  suc- 
cessful forms  of  wit  will  be  that  which  will  give  them 
freedom  from  what  dominates  their  thinking,  logic. 
Faulty  logic,  which  in  the  wit  flash  may  be  overlooked,  is 
the  disguise  which  wit  assumes  to  overcome  the  resistance 
of  the  inner  or  outer  censors. 

A  remark  attributed  to  Wendell  Phillips  may  be  of- 
fered as  an  illustration  of  faulty  logic  producing  humor- 
ous results. 

Asked  by  a  clergyman  why  he  did  not  go  right  into  the 
heart  of  the  south  to  save  negroes  from  slavery,  the 
abolitionist,  in  his  turn,  asked  the  clergyman  why  in  his 
search  for  souls  to  save  he  did  not  go  straight  to  hell. 
The  comparison  between  hell  and  the  south  could  not 
stand  any  stern  logical  test. 

As  in  dreams,  the  sex  and  the  ego  element  dominate 


I08  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

wit  in  almost  equal  proportion.  No  witticism  is  entirely 
free  from  one  or  the  other;  in  other  words,  no  witticism 
is  entirely  harmless. 

The  aggressive  joke,  which  Freud  considers  as  the  last 
vestige  of  the  physical  encounter  of  old,  forbidden  by 
civilization,  is  the  least  harmless  of  all  the  jokes  traceable 
to  the  ego  urge's  attempt  at  expression.  The  ego  dis- 
parages the  adversary  and  the  self-protection  urge  uses 
the  infantile  stratagem  of  smile  or  laughter  to  disarm  the 
adversary  while  propitiating  the  audience. 

Catty  wit  is  another  form  of  ego  compensation. 

"  That  woman  reminds  me  of  a  Greek  Venus,"  a  man 
said  to  another  woman. 

"  She  can't  be  as  old  as  that,"  the  clever  cat  answered. 

*'  This  car  will  take  you  to  Albany  in  less  than  three 
hours,"  the  automobile  salesman  said  enthusiastically. 

"  But  what  would  I  do  in  Albany?  "  the  sour  customer 
answered. 

Self-criticism  jokes  are  generally  inspired  by  our  self- 
protection  urge.  By  taking  the  initiative,  the  jokester 
robs  a  possible  adversary  of  his  best  weapon.  He  gives 
the  impression  of  being  indifferent  to  ridicule.  The  re- 
mark, "  I  always  appreciate  a  joke,  even  when  it  is  at  my 
expense,"  is  profoundly  hypocritical  and  is  generally  made 
by  very  touchy  persons,  anxious  to  ward  off  either  a 
humorous  attack  or  its  repetition. 

Compare  Jewish  jokes  made  up  by  Jewish  wits  and 
those  due  to  a  gentile's  sense  of  humor,  and  the  difference 
will  strike  you.  The  former  are  defence  jokes,  alluding 
gently  to  certain  idiosyncrasies  of  which,  in  some  cases, 
Jews  may  be  proud;  the  latter  are  aggressive,  disparaging 
jokes,  charged  with  a  humiliating  intent. 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   WIT  IO9 

The  majority  of  disparaging  witticisms  are  directed 
against  the  people  or  things  of  which  we  are  afraid,  or 
which  law  or  custom  compel  us  to  respect.  Humorous 
stories  concerned  with  famous  or  powerful  men  are  al- 
ways intensely  popular,  for  they  bring  exceptional  char- 
acters down  to  our  level.  The  burlesque  theatre  never 
fails  to  present  some  pompous  personage  who  falls  head- 
long into  a  pail  of  flour  paste,  a  clergyman  discovered  in 
an  undignified  situation,  or  a  policeman  outwitted  by 
thieves  or  street  gamins. 

In  many  cases,  wit  employs  a  subterfuge  recalling 
closely  the  symbols  used  in  dreams  by  the  urges  intent  on 
foiling  the  censor. 

A  careful  man,  who  did  not  dare  to  show  any  open 
sympathy  for  labor,  could  very  properly  relate  the  old 
story  of  the  engineer  who  was  blown  to  a  point  five 
miles  from  the  factory  by  a  boiler  explosion  and  who, 
after  his  return,  was  docked  for  being  absent  without 
leave. 

A  respectable  husband  and  father  can  not  with  pro- 
priety disapprove  of  the  restrictions  imposed  upon  a  man's 
freedom  by  matrimonial  regulations,  but  he  may  tell  a 
joke  like  the  following,  or  smile  when  it  is  told  in  his 
presence: 

"What  is  life  with  several  wives?"  —  "Polyga- 
mous." —  "With  two  wives?"  —  "Bigamous."  — 
"  With  one  wife?  "  —  "  Monotonous." 

Freud  has  analyzed  at  length  the  various  Jewish  jokes 
centering  around  fthe  more  or  less  ridiculous  figure  of  the 
marriage  broker,  and  which  can  be,  generally  speaking, 
reduced  to  the  following  formula  :  The  young  man  desires 
beauty  and  wealth,  the  young  woman  is  poor  and  presents 


no  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

many  unpleasant  physical  characteristics,  and  when  the 
young  man  remonstrates  with  the  agent,  the  latter  reveals 
some  more  horrible  details  about  the  bride  to  be. 

"  She  seems  lame  and  partly  blind,"  the  suitor  whispers. 

"  You  can  talk  louder.  She  is  deaf  too,"  the  agent 
remarks. 

TKat  kind  of  story  is  a  convenient,  safe  cover  for  some- 
thing less  "  harmless."  Over  the  head  of  the  stupid 
marriage  agent  whom  it  seems  to  ridicule,  it  actually 
strikes  at  the  sordid  marriage  customs  of  certain  bour- 
geois circles;  by  a  roundabout  way,  it  manages  to  attain 
its  goal  without  offending  the  hearers. 

Like  the  story  in  which  the  schoolboy  is  the  apparently 
ridiculous  figure  and  excites  laughter  for  not  knowing  the 
difference  between  monogamous  and  monotonous,  it  useg 
"  displacement  "  for  safety's  sake. 

The  mother-in-law  joke,  which  occupies  such  a  prom- 
inent place  in  the  wit  of  all  nations,  assumes  a  vntai 
significance  when  we  read  a  chapter  of  Freud's  book  on 
"  Totem  and  Taboo." 

There  seems  to  have  been  something  peculiar  and  dis- 
tressing in  all  ages  of  mankind  in  the  relation  between  a 
woman  and  her  daughter's  husband.  Almost  all  primi- 
tive races  have  accumulated  an  incredible  amount  of  legis- 
lation to  regulate  these  relations,  which  they  treat  with 
tragic  earnestness.  Some  tribes  make  it  a  misdemeanor 
for  a  man  to  address  his  wife's  mother,  or,  in  certain 
cases,  to  be  alone  with  her  or  simply  to  lay  eyes  on  her. 

The  relation  is  ambivalent,  that  Is,  made  up  in  equal 
amounts  of  attraction  and  repulsion  on  both  sides.  A 
woman  is  apt  to  dislike  the  man  who  takes  her  daughter 
away  from  her,  thus  abolishing  a  part  of  her  domination 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   WIT  III 

over  her  children.     The  man  may  also  resent  whatever 
authority  his  mother-in-law  retains  over  his  wife. 

On  the  other  hand  we  see  grounds  for  the  old  incest 
fear  which  obsesses  all  primitive  races  and  has  led  to 
strict  exogamy  in  every  nation.  A  man  has  a  tendency 
to  select  his  wife  according  to  unconscious  standards  estab- 
lished by  the  memory  of  his  mother.  His  wife's  mother 
is  bound  therefore  to  present  many  of  the  traits  which 
consciously  or  unconsciously  attracted  him  to  his  wife. 

Furthermore,  the  mother-in-law,  who  more  or  less  un- 
consciously identifies  herself  with  her  daughter,  be  it  from 
love  or  from  egotism  or  both,  may  become  unconsciously 
infatuated  with  her  son-in-law. 

This  is  the  more  credible  when  we  remember  the  Jung 
experiments  proving  the  strange  similarity  between 
mother  and  daughter  reactions  (see  Chapter  XVIII, 
pages  207,  599). 

Consciously  or  unconsciously  the  mother-in-law  will  re- 
act against  her  son-in-law's  attraction.  Throup:h  over- 
compensation  for  her  unconscious  love  for  him,  she  as- 
sumes toward  him  a  strongly  antagonistic  attitude.  For 
many  hostile  feelings  are  merely  the  result  of  the  stubborn 
repression  of  some  strong  attraction. 

The  mother-in-law  joke,  therefore,  has  its  origin  in 
one  of  the  most  important  psycho-biological  tendencies  of 
the  race,  voices  In  a  disguised  way  the  world-old  fear  of 
the  wife's  mother  and  advances  a  thousand  imaginary, 
hypocritical  reasons  for  avoiding  her  or  displaying  hos- 
tility tov/ard  her.  Every  one  of  those  reasons  is  a 
cover-Idea  for  the  real  sexual  preoccupation  which  is  the 
basis  of  the  problem. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  relation  of  man  to  his  son's 


112  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

wife  has  proved  infinitely  simpler  to  the  various  races, 
and  that,  as  a  consequence,  we  find  only  an  insignificant 
number  of  statutes  regulating  it  and  of  jokes  alluding  to 
it,  compared  to  the  amount  of  legal  and  humorous  litera- 
ture relative  to  the  mother-in-law. 

Obscene  wit,  Freud  states,  is  an  intentional  attempt 
at  bringing  sexual  facts  into  prominence.  This  defini- 
tion would  equally  apply  to  a  lecture  on  sexual  physiology, 
were  it  not  for  a  very  important  difference  between  the 
two  performances. 

A  medical  lecture  is  not  directed  against  anybody,  while 
obscene  wit  has  a  demonstrable  aggressive  intent.  The 
obscene  joke  is  directed  against  a  particular  person  whom 
it  attempts  to  arouse  sexually.  The  attempt  may  fail 
and  the  listener  may  react  only  with  shame  or  anger, 
which,  after  all,  is  an  admission  of  the  joke's  intent  and 
baffled  effect. 

The  obscene  joke  is,  according  to  Freud,  comparable 
to  an  attempt  at  seduction.  If  the  attempt  succeeds, 
obscene  language  ceases. 

The  loving  speech  of  courtship,  which  verges  continu- 
ally on  mild  indecency,  becomes  purged  of  its  suggestive 
element  as  soon  as  a  definite  agreement  has  been  reached 
by  the  two  partners.  Risky  allusions  and  shady  stories 
become  obsolete  when  a  man  and  a  woman  become  inti- 
mate. The  obscene  witticism  is  then  a  mere  form  of 
compensation  for  repressed  or  unsatisfied  sexual  desires. 
Like  all  other  sexual  manifestations  of  the  pleasure  urge, 
it  is  strongly  inhibited  by  inner  and  outer  censors,  self- 
protection  urge  and  custom. 

The  lower  the  intelligence  of  the  listeners,  the  more 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   WIT  II3 

bold  and  direct  obscenity  is  likely  to  be.  The  higher 
their  intelligence,  and  the  more  developed  and  potent  the 
censors  are,  the  more  obstacles  obscene  wit  encounters 
and  the  more  carefully  it  must  disguise  itself.  A  point 
of  refinement  may  be  reached  at  which  it  is  only  the  very 
keen,  well  informed  and  sophisticated  listener  who  is  able 
to  detect  the  actual  meaning  of  an  obscene  joke. 

The  cynical  joke,  based  upon  strivings  for  expression 
of  the  non-sexual  elements  of  the  urges,  needs  no  such 
complete  disguise.  It  is  more  direct,  only  crediting 
someone  else  with  certain  sayings  of  a  cynical  nature, 
which,  however,  cast  no  reflection  on  the  cynic's  intelli- 
gence, as  the  "  marriage  agent  "  joke  or  the  "monoton- 
ous "  joke  cast  on  the  Intelligence  of  the  marriage  agent 
or  of  the  school  boy.  The  cynical  joke  brings  out  fQjxibly 
the  fact  that  the  human  organism  Is  probably  meant  to 
seek  constantly  some  form  of  enjoyment,  a  fact  which 
more  or  less  hypocritical  custom  with  its  sadistic- 
masochistic  perversions  has  come  to  deny  emphatically. 

A  frank  denial  of  the  hierarchy  of  pleasures  and  a  re- 
gression to  the  line  of  least  effort  In  the  quest  of  hedonist 
gratification  Is  voiced  by  this  story,  typical  of  all  cynical 
wit : 

A  drug  addict  was  losing  his  hearing.  Following  his 
physician's  orders  he  abstained  for  a  while,  improved 
rapidly,  but  had  a  sudden  relapse.  "  Of  course,"  he  told 
his  physician,  "  I  could  hear  better  after  giving  up  dope, 
but  nothing  I  heard  sounded  as  good  as  the  dope  makes 
me  feel." 

The  last  question  to  be  settled  is,  "  Why  do  we 
laugh?" 


I  14  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Laughter  Is  partly  an  unconscious  reflex  action.  I  say 
unconscious  because  in  many  cases  the  wit-work  conceals 
its  mechanism  so  cleverly  that  we  do  not  realize  at  once 
what  actually  makes  us  laugh. 

The  facial  expression  of  the  laughing  person  suggests 
that  of  the  satisfied  nursling  leaving  the  mother's  breast. 
In  both  cases  the  contour  of  the  open  mouth  and  the  lines 
of  the  face  present  striking  similarities. 

Laughter  would  then  be  an  infantile  symptom  of  grati- 
fication. 

We  also  notice  that  the  creator  or  teller  of  jokes  often 
retains  a  serious  countenance  while  his  hearers  may  be 
bursting  with  laughter.  At  times,  however,  physical  sug- 
gestion-imitation may  lead  him  to  join  in  the  merriment, 
but  his  laughter  in  this  case  is  not  brought  forth  by  his 
joke  but  by  his  listeners'  facial  expression. 

The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek.HKVhile  performing  the 
various  operations  constituting  the  wit-work,  the  uncon- 
scious gradually  relieves  itself  of  several  repressions; 
when  the  finished  product  of  the  wit-work  rises  to  con- 
sciousness, the  relief  is  complete.  Much  energy  has  been 
expended  in  the  struggle  between  the  urges  striving  for  ex- 
pression and  the  censor  holding  them  back  and  only  allow- 
ing them  to  find  an  outlet  when  they  have  been  clothed  in 
a  harmless  form. 

That  expenditure  of  energy  prevents  the  conscious  feel- 
ing of  relief  from  being  loud  or  boisterous.  4r~ 

The  listener,  on  the  other  hand,  has  spent  no  energy  in 
any  mental  struggle.  Wit  brings  to  him,  not  a  pro- 
gressive relief,  like  the  slow  unwinding  of  a  clock's  spring, 
but  a  sudden  relief,  like  the  release  of  the  spring  in  an 
air-gun. 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   WIT  II5 

The  smile  of  the  joke-teller  resembles  the  almost  im- 
noticeable  ticking  of  a  clock,  while  the  laughter  of  the 
listener  resembles  the  report  of  a  gun. 

When  a  person  laughs  at  his  own  jokes,  it  may  be  as- 
sumed that  the  jokes  he  tells  and  enjoys  so  keenly  touch 
very  personal  complexes  and  give  him  a  much  needed  un- 
conscious relief.  In  certain  cases  that  laughter  may  be- 
tray self-consciousness  and  nervousness  over  the  effect 
which  the  story  may  have  upon  the  audience.  In  both 
cases,  however,  it  reveals  personal-effect  elements. 

Very  naturally,  mental,  intellectual  and  physical  parity 
and  harmony  between  joker  and  listener  will  add  power 
to  the  joke,  for  the  repressions  will  be  much  alike  in  both 
and  will  seek  more  or  less  identical  forms  of  relief. 

Jokes  told  by  a  person  of  inferior  mentality  are  not 
likely  to  amuse  a  keen-minded  person.  Brevity  is  the  soul 
of  wit,  and  slow  people  are  likely  to  tell  slow  jokes.  As 
the  effect  of  a  joke  depends  upon  the  suddenness  with 
which  it  releases  some  tense,  coiled  spring  in  our  mind, 
the  quick  joke  which  takes  one  by  surprise  is  more  effective 
than  the  long  drawn  out  witticism  whose  point  we  see 
long  before  the  story  is  told  and  which  relieves  us  grad- 
ually without  causing  the  exciting  and  enjoyable  explosion 
whose  outward  symptom  is  laughter. 

A  distinction  has  frequently  been  made  between  the 
comic  and  wit  on  the  ground  that  the  comic  causes  merri- 
ment by  making  us  witness  or  visualize  an  absurd  expendi- 
ture of  energy,  while  the  very  economy  of  energy  prac- 
ticed by  sharp,  quick  wit  makes  us  laugh.  The  distinc- 
tion is  quite  arbitrary.  For  quick  wit  suddenly  releases 
in  us  a  large  amount  of  pent  up  and  suppressed  energy, 
mental  and  physical.     The  antics  of  a  clown  give  us  a 


Il6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

vicarious  relief  for  the  energy  which  the  inhibitions  of 
modern  life  no  longer  allow  adults  to  let  out  in  simple, 
direct,  childlike  ways. 

Besides  the  relief  thus  obtained  through  watching  comic 
actions,  there  is  a  distinct  satisfaction  derived  by  our  ego 
from  the  feeling  that  the  comic  person  is  ridiculous  and 
hence  inferior  to  us,  much  as  we  may  unconsciously  crave 
to  imitate  him. 

For  when  we  are  convulsed  with  laughter  at  the  sight 
of  some  grotesque  gesticulation,  we  probably  imitate  in 
a  symbolic,  censored  way  that  gesticulation ;  then  our  sides 
may  hurt  as  though  we  had  been  romping  about  or  indulg- 
ing in  some  kind  of  childish  play. 

Wit,  then,  appears  to  us  a  valuable  mental  safety-valve. 
It  supplements  dreams  in  our  waking  states  and  may  be  a 
better  adji^vant  to  mental  and  physical  health  than 
dreams,  for  it  never  lends  itself  (if  we  disregard  the  con- 
vulsive laughter  of  hysterics  and  idiots)  to  anxiety  de- 
velopments. Wit  throws  a  reasonable  doubt  upon  the 
power  or  the  reality  of  the  repressions  it  seeks  to  destroy. 
As  many  mental  disturbances  are  due  to  a  conflict  between 
a  severe  censor  and  the  urges,  between  moral  and  social 
inhibitions  and  unconscious  desires,  wit  may  in  many 
cases  prevent  the  growth  of  phobias.  It  does  not  remove 
the  inhibitions  but  it  softens  the  tragic  aspect  they  assume 
in  certain  neurotics. 

Language  expresses  that  valuable  property  of  wit. 
We  must  be  taken  literally  when  we  say  that  all  that  saved 
some  person  in  a  crisis  or  an  emergency  was  his  "  sense 
of  humor." 

To  unimaginative,  primitive  minds,  it  may  be  that  the 


THE    PSYCHOLOGY   OF   WIT  II7 

comic,  and  especially  the  burlesque  spectacle  has  a  thera- 
peutic value  which  is  not  to  be  scorned.  Vaudeville  au- 
diences, made  up  as  they  are  of  simple,  conventional  folks, 
In  whom  self-consciousness  is  a  painful  trait,  and  for 
whom  a  thousand  little  repressions  represent  "  manners  " 
or  distinction,  probably  derive  a  great  amount  of  un- 
conscious relief  by  listening  to  the  stupid  forms  of  witti- 
cism which  season  vaudeville  numbers,  or  witnessing 
horse-play  which  they  crave  to  Indulge  In  but  could  not 
without  losing  caste  In  their  social  stratum. 

Puritans  have,  with  their  complete  lack  of  psychologi- 
cal Insight,  dwelt  profusely  on  the  coarse  passions  which 
such  spectacles  may  arouse.  The  coarse  passions,  how- 
ever, are  there  already  pent  up  in  the  unconscious  and 
struggling  for  some  normal  or  abnormal  expression. 
Their  release  through  vicarious  indulgence  can  only  pre- 
vent them  from  breaking  through  abnormally  should 
they  find  a  weak  point  In  the  mental  or  physical  structure 
of  the  Individual. 

Aggressive  wit  is  certainly  a  form  of  relief  preferable 
to  physical  encounter.  Obscene  wit,  until  some  other 
more  acceptable  form  of  relief  Is  found  for  certain  sex- 
ual desires,  will  be  a  welcome  substitute  for  a  sexual  at- 
tack. Wit  taking  legal  restrictions  as  Its  aim  may  be  a 
valuable  preventive  of  unlawful  violence. 

Wit,  being  a  product  of  the  unconscious,  gives  us  a 
good  deal  of  Information  on  the  repressions  under  which 
the  jokester  Is  smarting. 

An  exaggerated  fondness  for  puns  and  jokes  may  be  a 
symptom  of  a  slight  neurotic  trend.  It  has  been  known 
to  accompany  an  incipient  dissociation  of  the  personality. 


I  I  8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Obscene  jokes  reveal  a  tendency  to  exhibitionism;  ag- 
gression jokes  sadism;  self-inflicted  jokes,  masochism,  or  a 
morbid  fear  of  criticism;  cynical  jokes  a  craving  for 
selfish  hedonism. 

By  their  jokes  ye  shall  know  them. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   ARTISTIC   TEMPERAMENT 

In  his  study  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  Freud  attempted 
to  explain  the  artistic  temperament  or  the  desire  for 
artistic  creation  through  a  process  which  he  calls  "  sub- 
limation." The  word  was  unfortunate  and  should  not 
be  granted  a  place  in  the  vocabulary  of  psychoanalysis. 
Sublimation,  in  the  Freudian  sense,  has  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  what  chemists  call  sublimation.  It  is  rather 
related  to  the  adjective  "  sublime,"  and  would  then  sug- 
gest a  distinction  between  lower  and  higher  activities. 

No  scientist  could  accept  such  a  distinction,  least  of  all 
Freud.  By  "  sublimation,"  we  hasten  to  say,  Freud  sim- 
ply meant  the  deflecting  of  the  sexual  impulse  into  other 
channels,  into  business  or  professional  activities,  toward 
"  other  aims  of  greater  value,  which  are  not  sexual." 

This  explanation  fails  to  explain  why  the  "  sublima- 
tion "  in  certain  cases  happens  to  be  specifically  of  an 
artistic  type.  ' 

The  idea  of  sublimation,  however,  was  seized  upon 
eagerly  by  many  men  of  the  Zurich  school  who  advise 
patients  of  the  "  oversexed  "  type  to  "  sublimate  "  their 
desire  through  religious  meditations  and  to  direct  it  to- 
ward "  ideal  "  objects. 

This  is  a  relapse  into  old-fashioned  ethics  which  al- 
ways states  what  the  non-existent  human  being  called 
"  the  average  man  "  should  do,  instead  of  determining 

119 


I20  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

what  a  particular  person  with  definite  characteristics  can 
actually  do.  This  attitude  makes  the  study  of  artistic 
phenomena  as  hopeless  as  the  attitude  assumed  a  century 
ago  by  a  certain  naturalist  who  discovered  noble  traits 
in  some  animals,  ignoble  traits  in  others. 

We  derive  little  enlightenment  on  the  origin  of  the 
artistic  impulse  from  Jung's  remarks. 

Jung  finds  the  beginnings  of  art  in  animals,  "  when  a 
part  of  the  energy  required  in  the  production  of  eggs  and 
semen  was  used  to  create  devices  which  would  attract  the 
female  and  protect  the  young." 

This  is  anthropomorphism  at  its  worst,  the  old-fash- 
ioned Darwinism  whose  childishness  has  been  exposed  by 
writers  like  V.  L.  Kellogg. 

The  devices  which  Darwin  considered  as  meant  to  at- 
tract the  female  have  such  a  meaning  only  in  man's  eyes 
and  their  absolute  lack  of  individuality  makes  them  as 
l'( tie  related  to  art  as  the  absorption  of  food  and  the  elim- 
i:iation  of  waste  products  by  the  organism. 

The  first  convincing  hypothesis  touching  the  origin  of 
the  work  of  art  has  been  presented  by  Adler  in  his  mono- 
graph on  "  Organ  Inferiority." 

At  the  root  of  artistic  accomplishment  there  is,  ac- 
cording to  him,  an  unconscious  desire  to  compensate  for 
some  organic  inferiority.  "  Organs  of  slight  inferiority," 
he  says,  "  develop  greater  functional  capacity  than  normal 
organs.  .  .  .  The  cause  lies  in  the  compulsion  of  a  con- 
stant training  in  the  capacity  for  adaptation  and  varia- 
bility often  adhering  to  inferior  organs  and  surely  also 
in  the  development  of  the  related  nervous  and  psychic 
complexes  heightened  by  inner  attention  and  mental  con- 
centration upon  the  weaker  organ.   ...  A  particular  in- 


THE    ARTISTIC    TEMPERAMENT  121 

terest  seeks  to  protect  the  Inferior  organ  and  endeavors 
to  ward  off  harm  by  constant  attention;  and  the  psyche,  on 
a  small  scale,  perhaps,  gives  the  Impulse  to  awaken  the 
attention,  to  Increase  It  and  connect  it  vnth  that  organ." 

From  this  point  of  view,  we  may  understand  the  nature 
of  genius  and  genlus-like  activities,  and  the  conditions 
which  often  lay  the  foundations  for  the  choice  of  a  pro- 
fession. 

Adler  calls  our  attention  to  the  degenerative  disposition 
of  Mozart's  ears,  to  Beethoven's  otosclerosis,  to  the  fact 
that  Bruckner's  ears  were  stigmatized  by  a  mole,  that 
Demosthenes  suffered  in  infancy  from  an  Impediment  in 
his  speech,  that  Moses,  orator  and  leader  of  men,  was 
said  to  have  a  "  heavy  tongue,"  that  Schumann's  psychose 
was  characterised  by  auditory  hallucinations. 

Adler  states  that  he  has  noticed  Innumerable  tokens 
of  degeneration,  childish  defects,  and  reflex  anomalies,  in 
singers,  speakers  and  actors,  from  which  he  concludes  that 
originally  some  inferiority  of  their  respiratory  appa- 
ratus led  them  to  seek  compensation  In  the  related  psychic 
field. 

In  other  words,  the  individual  with  a  weak  throat  will 
unconsciously  seek  all  the  activities  which  are  apt  to  de- 
velop his  throat,  his  power  of  speech  and  tone-production. 
The  man  with  weak  eye-sight  will  pay  more  attention  to 
colors  than  the  man  with  normal  vision.  The  man  with 
ear-trouble  will  develop  more  accuracy  In  his  perception 
of  sounds  and  constantly  seek  the  kind  of  sound  stimuli 
which  are  more  varied  in  pitch,  for  Instance,  the  enorm- 
ous variety  of  tones  which  one  can  hear  by  attending  a 
concert. 

We  can  accept  Adler's  thesis  that  one's  choice  of  artis- 


122  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

tic  or  professional  activities  is  determined  by  some  organ 
inferiority,  perhaps  imaginary,  and  at  times  psycliically 
induced;  we  can  see  how  attempted  compe*isation  for  a 
physical  defect  or  its  attempted  correction  would  create 
a  liking  for  certain  activities  favorable  to  those  processes; 
but  the  problem  of  creation  remains  unsolved. 

Adier's  thesis  justifies  us  in  giving  art  a  place  among 
the  forms  of  normal  compensation.  And  here  we  are  re- 
minded of  Jung's  striking  statement  that  in  every  neurotic 
he  has  discovered  unconscious  artistic  ability. 

Is  the  neurosis  not  due  to  the  fact  that  in  such  cases 
the  psychic  impulse  arising  from  physical  need,  organ  in- 
feriority and  life  pressure,  has  met  with  unserviceable 
brain  material? 

We  are  coming  to  something  more  definite.  Instead 
of  a  sentimental  sublimation  of  the  sex  instinct  being 
at  the  root  of  artistic  creation,  we  behold  one  of  na- 
ture's processes,  whereby  inferior  material  is  being  re- 
claimed and  made  useful  and  efficient  in  a  roundabout 
way. 

Even  psychologists  of  the  old  school,  like  Janet,  could 
not  help  observing  and  mentioning  the  neurotic's  sense 
of  inferiority,  which  Janet  called  a  sense  of  incomplete- 
ness and  which  sought  compensation  in  neurotic  imagin- 
ings. 

Art,  then,  becomes  one  great  form  of  compensation, 
not  only  for  the  artist  but  for  all  the  similarly  orientated 
minds,  supplementing  beautifully  the  universal  consola- 
tion of  mankind,  the  dream;  for  it  enables  us  to  share  the 
relief  afforded  by  someone  else's  dreams,  provided  they 
are  made  concrete  by  the  pen,  the  chisel  or  the  brush. 

Here  we  find  an  alluring  explanation  of  the  relation- 


THE   ARTISTIC   TEMPERAMENT  1 23 

ship  often  proclaimed  in  a  disparaging  way,  by  the  nar- 
row-minded and  the  non-creative,  between  the  artist  and 
the  neurotic  or  the  psychotic. 

The  psychotic  creates  a  world  of  his  own  in  which  he 
attempts  to  live  and  which  is  peopled  with  fantastic 
figures. 

The  artist  also  creates  a  world  of  his  own,  peopled  with 
figures  he  hallucinates.     But  there  the  resemblance  ends. 

The  psychotic,  after  jumping  off  the  edge  of  the  real 
world,  is  unable  to  climb  back  from  the  moon  in  which 
he  landed.  The  artist  retains  his  freedom  of  motion  and 
returns  to  earth  whenever  the  call  of  necessity  is  heard. 

The  neurotic  has  exchanged  a  distressing  feeling  for 
perhaps  a  distressing  pain.  The  psychotic  has  exchanged 
it  for  a  sometimes  distressing  vision,  distressing  because 
his  attempt  to  impose  it  upon  the  real  world  causes  him 
much  annoyance. 

The  artist  has  exchanged  his  feeling  of  incompleteness 
for  an  absorbingly  interesting  vision,  which  he  makes  ac- 
cessible to  the  whole  world.  Neurotic  and  psychotic  are 
asocial;  the  artist,  so  far  as  the  result  of  his  dreams  is 
concerned,  is  the  most  social  of  human  beings. 

The  artist  throughout  the  ages  has  been  criticized  for 
his  moral  laxity  and  his  egotism.  These  two  charges 
must  be  investigated  very  carefully,  for  the  second  will 
bring  us  closer  to  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  artistic 
creation. 

The  sexual  life  of  the  artist  has  been  the  subject  of 
much  stupid  discussion  and  of  much  hypocritical  rant.  It 
has  been  pointed  out  many  times  that  men  and  women 
of  genius  do  not  always  display  in  tHeir  private  life  the 
purity  of  v/hich  their  detractors  claim  to  be  exemplars. 


1 24  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  life  of  most  artists  is,  and  ow- 
ing to  the  physical  prerequisites  of  their  art,  must  be,  as 
regular  as  that  of  the  average  shop-keeper.  .  The  shop- 
keeper, however,  being  unknown  two  blocks  away  from 
his  shop  or  his  residence,  is  freer  from  exposure.  The 
artist,  being  a  more  or  less  public  character,  attracts  more 
attention  to  himself  and  any  woman  in  whose  company  he 
happens  to  be,  and  becomes,  therefore,  a  better  butt  for 
gossip. 

The  thousands  of  prostitutes  who  ply  their  trade  along 
the  streets  of  our  cities  are  patronized  by  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  insignificant  persons  claiming  no  artistic 
distinction.  The  attachments  formed  by  artists,  on  the 
other  hand,  are,  according  to  their  biographies,  with 
women  and  men  of  a  radically  different  type. 

The  aspersions  cast  upon  the  morals  of  artists  reveal 
more  envy  than  anger.  And  indeed,  society  makes  con- 
stant allowances  for  artists  who  go  beyond  the  limita- 
tions of  the  world  and  allow  us  to  follow  them  a  part  of 
the  way.  Art  enables  the  layman  to  peep  into  god-land, 
fairy-land,  hero-land,  and  to  consort  with  men  and  women 
who  are  absolutely  removed  from  our  sphere  of  activity, 
to  revel  in  combinations  of  colors,  shapes  and  sounds  of 
which  our  everyday  life  is  devoid. 

Not  that  I  would  deny  the  importance  of  sex  in  art. 
Sex  colors  all  art,  be  it  lyric  poetry,  sculpture  or  music, 
and  artistic  eroticism  has  played  a  thousand  times  the  part 
of  a  substitute  for  the  gratification  the  artist  failed  to 
secure  in  his  everyday  life;  but  the  creative  urge  is  not 
made  up  solely  of  sublimated  sexual  elements. 

Sex  might  explain  Dreiser's  "  Genius,"  but  not  Coii- 
rad's  "  Shadow  Line." 


THE   ARTISTIC    TEMPERAMENT  1 25 

If  there  were  nothing  but  sex,  nothing  but  hedonist 
promptings  in  art,  the  artist  would  not  feel  the  pressing 
need  of  communicating  his  dreams  to  the  outside  world. 
Day  dreams  would  supply  him  with  all  the  substitute 
erotic  enjoyment  he  craved.  We  would  not  see  "  strug- 
gling artists  "  bearing  bravely  many  privations  for  the 
sake  of  realizing  their  ideal. 

We  come  now  to  the  second  charge  which  has  been 
brought  against  artists:  they  are  egotistical,  self-centered, 
bumptious,  vain,  etc. 

It  is  precisely  this  egotism,  this  vanity,  which  compels 
them  to  endure  hardships  in  order  to  reproduce  their 
dreams  on  paper  or  canvas,  in  prose,  verse,  musical  nota- 
tion, clay  or  marble. 

The  artist  insists  that  the  world  must  know  of  his 
dreams;  his  egotism  is  not  satisfied  with  the  creation  of  a 
phantasy.  This  phantasy  must  be  revealed  to  other  hu- 
man beings.  His  dreams  fail  to  satisfy  'him  until  they 
become,  so  to  speak,  the  mould  for  the  world's  dreams, 
until  his  dreaming  dominates  the  world's  dreaming. 

Then,  and  then  only,  is  his  feeling  of  inferiority  entirely 
removed. 

He  is  not  as  selfish  as  the  short  psychology  of  the 
average  man  pretends  him  to  be.  He  unconsciously 
masters  one  defect  but  he  is  not  satisfied  with  his  own  con- 
sciousness of  the  attained  mastery.  The  world  must  put 
the  stamp  of  its  approval  on  the  performance.  It  is  the 
applause  of  a  larger  or  smaller  number  of  kindred  spirits 
(according  to  the  development  of  his  egotism),  which 
gives  the  artist  the  assurance  that  he  is  no  longer  inferior 
o  •  incomplete,  that  he  is  a  superior,  a  complete  man. 
The  neurotic  acquires  that  certainty  in  ways  which  are 


126  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

generally  noxious  to  himself  and  his  environment;  the 
psychotic  does  not  need  the  assurance;  the  artist  acquires 
the  certainty  of  his  superiority  by  enriching  his  world  and 
the  world  of  others. 

It  has  often  been  said  by  anti-feminists  that  woman  has 
no  creative  genius.  In  reality  women  hav'e  v/ritten, 
painted  and  composed  very  little.  There  are  for  that 
fact  many  reasons  besides  the  pretended  inferiority  of 
women. 

"The  male  domination  upon  which  civilization  has  been 
based  for  centuries  has  emphasized  the  sensuous  rather 
than  the  powerful  side  in  woman's  nature,  the  woman's 
sex  rather  than  her  ego. 

With  many  careers  closed  to  her,  in  which  she  might 
give  expression  to  her  power  urge,  woman  has  been  com- 
pelled to  resort  to  cunning  in  order  to  compensate  for 
the  repression  of  her  vitality  and  to  obtain  by  stealth  what 
she  cannot  conquer  in  open  competition.  That  form  of 
activity  is  not  conducive  to  any  form  of  creation. 

Nor  is  the  exhibitionism  which  sexual  competition 
makes  imperative,  and  which  sexual  attraction  compels 
males  to  tolerate  and  encourage,  a  source  of  creative  activ- 
ity. The  human  being  who  spends  hours  in  adorning 
himself  has  little  mental  power  left  for  positive  accom- 
plishment of  a  social  character. 

Thus  the  desire  for  artistic  creation  has  been  dulled  in 
women,  and  its  expression  made  difficult,  if  not,  in  certain 
cases,  impossible. 

The  main  reason  for  women's  failure  to  accomplish 
much  in  the  field  of  art  is  the  fact  that  physically  she  Is 
essentially  creative.  Delage's  and  Loeb's  experiments 
are  likely  to  assign  to  man  a  more  and  more  insignificant 


THE    ARTISTIC    TEMPERAMENT  1 27 

role  in  procreation,  and  it  looks  as  though  the  legislation 
defining  the  father's  rights  over  the  children  was  inspired 
by  an  unconscious  desire  to  overcompensate  his  actual  in- 
significance. Woman  and  creation  are  almost  inter- 
changeable terms,  especially  to  students  of  parthenogene- 
sis. Bearing  children  and  leading  them  gradually  to  a 
point  of  satisfactory  adaptation  to  life's  needs  is  creative 
work  by  excellence  which  satisfies  not  only  the  primal  in- 
stinct of  reproduction,  but  also,  when  the  experiment  is 
successful,  the  ego  of  the  mother  and  increases  her  sense 
of  worthiness  and  power.  By  comparison  with  the  pro- 
duction of  a  strong  and  healthy  child,  full  of  romantic  pos- 
sibilities, mere  artistic  creation  pales  considerably. 

Barring  exceptions,  it  is  the  sterile  v/oman  who  con- 
tributes to  the  world's  artistic  fund  and  achieves  fame. 
A  fertile  woman  may  attain  eminence  as  a  singer  or  in- 
strumental performer,  in  which  case  she  is,  according  to 
Adler,  seeking  compensation  for  some  inferiority,  but  she 
is  not  likely  to  become  known  as  the  author  of  artistic 
works. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    URGES   AND    LITERATURE 

We  shall  waste  no  time  trying  to  determine  which  of 
the  arts  came  first  into  existence,  for  all  of  them  have 
followed  parallel  lines  of  development  and  reached  the 
same  stages  almost  simultaneously.  We  shall  begin  with 
literature,  then  consider  music,  and  finally  the  pictorial 
arts,  as  forms  of  expression  and  compensation.  The  leg- 
ends upon  which  we  touched  in  Chapter  VI  were  probably 
the  first  form  of  literature,  spoken  and  written.  At  an 
early  period,  man  discovered  his  physical  limitations  and 
began  to  dream  of  overcoming  them,  personally  or  vi- 
cariously. Sea  and  land  monsters  plagued  him  and  he 
crystallized  his  dreams  of  peace  with  those  dangerous  be- 
ings in  legends  of  helpful  animals,  of  herculean  individ- 
uals who  arose  and  slew  those  monsters. 

Man  noticed  that  the  span  of  his  life  was  short,  and 
he  began  to  dream  of  anthropomorphic  figures  that  would 
not  die,  that  nothing  could  harm,  that  would  occupy 
infinite  space,  and  possess  infinite  strength.  Stories  of 
gods  were  imagined,  and  some  of  these  gods  would  mingle 
now  and  then  with  the  daughters  of  men  and  impart  to 
men  their  immortality. 

Super-cavemen  arose  and  it  became  the  desire  of  each 
little  caveman  to  be  as  powerful  as  the  chief  bully  of  the 
herd.     The  doings  of  the  little  bullies  were  told,  by  them- 

128 


THE   URGES   AND    LITERATURE  1 29 

selves  or  their  retainers  and  embellished  through  retell- 
ing. And  wanderers  began  to  tell  those  stories,  adding 
to  them  deeds  they  would  have  liked  to  perform  them- 
selves, adding  deeds  which  the  bully  at  whose  "  court " 
they  were  stopping  was  craving  to  perform.  Folklore, 
religious  legends,  epics  were  born  in  that  way,  all  voicing 
man's  desire  for  power,  sex  gratification  and  security 
from  death. 

After  the  first  religions  were  established,  compensating 
man  for  his  physical  shortcomings,  after  the  first  terrors 
died  out,  mankind  began  to  indulge  in  mental  hedonism. 
The  second  period  of  literature  is  replete  with  stories  of 
adventure,  some  of  them  tragic  and  some  of  them  comic, 
but  all  of  them  entertaining. 

Legends  transformed  themselves  into  fiction,  religious 
rituals  into  dramatic  works,  which  at  times  utilized  the 
legends  and  incidents  from  old  epic  stories.  The  infant 
having  satisfied  a  number  of  elementary  cravings,  and 
feeling  relieved  from  various  fears,  wanted  to  play. 

I  might  select  the  Greek  tragedies  and  comedies  as 
characteristic  of  that  period.  Character  was  absent. 
Actors  wearing  an  anonymous  mask  whose  mouth  had  a 
downward  curve  or  an  upward  curve  according  to  the 
tragic  or  comic  import  of  their  words,  visualized  for  the 
public  a  number  of  incidents.  The  incident  alone  counted 
as  a  source  of  thrills,  and  caused  laughter  or  tears. 

The  birth  of  character  in  fiction  and  in  plays  marks  the 
third  stage  of  development  in  literature.  The  feeling 
that  by  being  itself,  a  well  difl^erentiated  ego  presents 
great  interest,  the  desire  to  create  another  world  peopled 
with  creatures  different  from  those  within  our  ken,  a  crav- 
ing to  emulate  the  creative  divinity,  was  to  bring  forth  lit- 


I30  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

erary  works  which,  for  convenience  and  brevity's  sake,  I 
might  symbolize  by  Shakespeare's  plays.  The  incident, 
while  apparently  important,  is  only  a  means  of  revela- 
tion for  some  of  the  dramatis  personae.  The  incident 
is  easily  forgotten,  but  the  protagonist  lingers  in  one's 
memory.  Oedipus  was  essentially  a  man,  any  man  who, 
cursed  by  fate,  killed  his  father,  married  his  mother  and 
then  blinded  himself.  If  we  should  forget  the  incidents 
In  Oedipus'  career  we  would  be  at  a  loss  to  define  him. 
On  the  other  hand,  Hamlet  or  King  Lear  represents  to  us, 
not  a  succession  of  incidents,  but  a  combination  of  psychic 
elements  which  precedes  incident  and  survives  incident, 
although  incident  gives  those  elements  an  opportunity  to 
make  themselves  more  easily  observable. 

Character-drawing  enriched  the  world  by  so  many  more 
new  types  which  did  not  exist  before  the  artist  created 
them.  Many  of  these  types  are  used  by  the  writer  for 
the  vicarious  fulfillment  of  his  wishes. 

Shakespeare,  denied  the  love  of  Mary  FItton  and 
W.  H.,  and  wooing  them  In  vain,  creates  Ophelia,  who 
loves  Hamlet,  and  dies  when  unable  to  secure  Hamlet's 
love. 

Turgenief,  enslaved  by  an  uninteresting,  domestic 
singer  of  little  intellectuality,  delineated  the  fascinating 
figures  of  ardent.  Intellectual  young  women,  who  offer 
their  love  to  young  revolutionists,  sometimes  forcing 
themselves  into  their  arms. 

Artsibashef,  weak  and  consumptive,  created  the  athletic 
Sanin,  feared  of  all  males  and  irresistible  to  all  females. 

Dostoyevsky,  the  selfish  epileptic,  created  a  lovable 
epileptic,  Mishkin,  and  many  christ-like,  self-sacrificing 
heroes,  whom  he  craved  to  emulate  and  might  have  emu- 


THE   URGES   AND   LITERATURE  I3I 

lated  If  his  passion  for  gambling  had  not  compelled  him 
to  be  mean  and  sordid. 

The  fourth  period  in  literature  shows  us  the  ego  reali- 
zation as  the  goal  of  all  writers. 

In  that  fourth  period  we  may  notice  a  gradual  growth 
of  the  ego.  The  realistic  school  was  often  charged  by 
critics  with  being  too  Impersonal,  too  photographic. 
Anyone  familiar  with  the  workings  of  the  unconscious 
will  smile  at  the  mention  of  those  two  adjectives.  No 
product  of  the  mind  can  be  impersonal.  Slavishly  as  we 
may  reproduce  In  words  a  landscape  or  describe  a  type 
from  life,  we  shall  only  see  the  details  which  our  uncon- 
scious allows  us  to  see;  to  some  other  details  our  uncon- 
scious shall  make  us  totally  blind.  I  once  studied  the  re- 
actions of  a  young  writer  and  discovered  that  the  word 
"  tree  "  was  connected  in  his  unconscious  with  a  fearful 
childhood  Impression  which  had  created  a  strong  complex. 
No  word  association  came  to  the  surface  of  his  mind  when 
the  word  "  tree  "  was  spoken  to  him  In  the  course  of  the 
usual  test.  An  investigation  of  his  writings  showed  that 
he  had  only  mentioned  the  word  "  tree  "  twice  in  his 
stories,  and  on  both  occasions  trees  played  the  part  of  a 
dark  or  sinister  element  in  the  landscape.  Someone  said 
very  truly  that  a  painting  was  a  landscape  seen  through  a 
temperament.  A  so-called  realistic  novel  only  contains 
what  the  writer's  unconscious  allows  it  to  contain. 

Not  satisfied  with  incident  and  character.  Indirect  me- 
diums of  self-expression,  writers  have  gradually  dis- 
carded them,  feeling  that  what  might  befall  someone 
else,  be  it  even  the  child  of  their  Imagination,  and  the 
feelings  of  some  hero  of  their  creating,  Is  far  from  being 
as  interesting  as  they  themselves,  their  life  and  their  psy- 


132  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

chology.  This  is  the  essence  of  lyric  poetry:  "I,  the 
wonderful  I,  did  a  certain  thing  which  must  be  wonderful 
because  I  did  it,  and  the  reader  cannot  help  being  inter- 
ested in  that  wonderful  fact." 

'*  My  case  is  an  unusual  one,"  every  neurotic  patient 
says  on  his  first  call  and  thereupon  proceeds  to  recite  a 
story  described  a  hundred  times  in  psychoanalytic  litera- 
ture. 

Memoirs,  autobiographical  or  semi-autobiographical 
fiction,  all  highly  colored  by  the  author's  unconscious  crav- 
ings and  terribly  distorted  by  his  complexes,  Rousseau's, 
Tolstoy's  self-revelations,  novels  like  "  The  Dangerous 
Age,"  "Jean  Christophe,"  "II  Piacere,"  Whitman's 
poems,  correspond  to  this  the  latest  development  of  the 
ego  in  letters. 

While  literature  has  gone  through  the  four  periods 
I  have  mentioned,  I  must  not  give  the  impression  that  the 
beginning  of  one  period  sounded  the  deathknell  of  the 
preceding  period.  The  extreme  ego  tendency  had  Its 
first  manifestation  the  first  time  the  first  lover  sang  of  his 
love.  In  modern  times,  Lafontalne  and  Krylof  have 
given  us  animal  fables,  a  genre  dating  back  to  the  infancy 
of  the  world.  Even  in  our  days  people  are  writing  epic 
poems.  But  the  fable,  the  story  of  adventure  and  the 
epic  are  only  feeble  survivals  furnishing  the  proper  men- 
tal diet  to  human  beings  whose  mentality  has  lingered  in 
the  stage  corresponding  to  those  literary  forms.  The 
joy  we  derive  from  literature  depends  Indeed  upon  our 
mental  stage  of  development  and  upon  the  unconscious 
cravings  of  our  life. 

Infantile  readers  will  find  delight  in  the  mysterious, 
the  fantastic,  the  childlike,  in  thrilling  incident;  the  more 


THE    URGES   AND    LITERATURE  133 

developed  will  be  pleased  by  character-drawing,  which 
supplements  their  world  and  supplies  them  with  vicarious 
enjoyment  of  psychological  complications. 

Finally,  the  reader  with  a  well-developed  ego  will  seek 
eagerly  the  self-revelation  which  characterises  modern 
production  in  letters. 

This  is  the  secret  of  the  appeal  which  lyrics  have  always 
'had  for  the  sentimental  (that  is,  the  unadapted,  who  are 
trying  to  live  in  a  softer,  kinder,  world) .  The  use  of  the 
"  I  "  enables  them  to  substitute  themselves  for  the  au- 
thor. The  selfish,  asocial  hedonism  of  poetry  transports 
us  into  a  world  close  enough  to  us  for  convenience  and  far 
removed  enough  to  allay  our  unconscious  craving  for 
safety. 

Poetry,  after  all,  corresponds  in  literature  to  the  sym- 
bolic disguise  which  the  safety  urge  places  upon  our  night 
visions. 

Like  wit,  it  often  disguises  its  object,  which  is  mainly 
sexual  gratification.  The  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Vice  may  seize  "  The  Genius  "  or  "  Hagar  Revelly,"  but 
the  versified  form  has  protected  Swinburne's,  Amy  Low- 
ell's and,  at  least  in  our  days,  Whitman's  poems. 

Poetry  seems  to  perpetuate  in  the  most  advanced  de- 
velopment of  the  ego  an  infantile  element,  rhythm,  a 
purely  physical  element  corresponding  to  the  constant  ac- 
tions of  the  living  body,  and  rhyme,  which  is  after  all  an 
infantile  product,  a  play  on  sounds,  a  pun.  Psychiatrists 
have  often  pointed  out  that  psychotics  of  an  infantile  type 
delight  in  speaking  in  rhyme,  in  using  "  clang  "  associa- 
tions. 

For  an  explanation  of  composition  in  literature,  as  well 
as  in  the  other  arts,  I  refer  the  reader  to  the  chapter  on 


134  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Wit.  Composition  is  nothing  but  economy  of  material 
and  suddenness  of  effect,  the  gathering  together  of  many 
stimuh  which  bring  forth  a  sudden  rehef  in  the  reader, 
listener  or  beholder. 

Therein  resides  the  main  difference  between  a  dramatic 
story  told  by  an  inexperienced  reporter  and  the  same  story 
as  told  by  a  great  artist.  A  newspaper  account  of  an 
accident  is  long-drawn,  dwells  on  too  many  trivial  details 
and  therefore  effects  in  the  reader  a  gradual  and  conse- 
quently unpleasurable  discharge  of  pent-up  feelings.  An 
artist,  by  cleverly  selecting  the  essentials  of  the  story, 
would  produce  in  the  reader  a  thrill,  which  is  analogous 
to  a  sudden  electric  discharge;  and  so  does  a  good  head- 
line writer. 

The  theatre  has  lagged  far  behind  all  the  other  arts. 
Being  thoroughly  commercialized  and  relying  upon  the 
favor  of  the  ticket-buying  multitude,  it  must  direct  its 
appeal  to  the  large  class  of  people  who  stand  mentally  a 
little  below  the  average  and  who,  lacking  imagination, 
must  have  every  action  presented  to  them  obviously,  after 
the  archaic,  primitive  fashion  of  our  night  dreams. 

Fiction  and  poetry  presuppose  a  certain  imaginative  cre- 
ation on  the  part  of  the  reader.  The  lazy-minded  and 
the  overactive  workers  who  seek  relaxation  enjoy  the 
theatre  immensely.  The  former  gratify  vicariously  the 
desire  for  action  which  their  low  sensory-motor  capacity 
cannot  realize;  the  latter,  generally  of  a  matter-of-fact 
disposition,  are  being  "  shown  "  life  problems  on  the 
stage  and  are  not  compelled  to  use  their  thinking  appa- 
ratus in  visualising  them. 

Exhibitionist  actors  without  intellectual  capacity,  who 
create  nothing,  simply  speak  and  act  someone's  drama 


THE    URGES   AND    LITERATURE  I35 

for  those  who  cannot  create  their  own  dreams  and  must 
hire  others  to  do  their  dreaming. 

The  stage  will  probably  never  progress  unless  some 
synchronization  of  the  phonograph  and  the  cinemato- 
graph enables  producers  to  give  to  small  audiences  such 
as  enjoy  literature  of  the  fourth  period,  advanced  plays 
whose  cost  of  production  is  practically  trifling. 

We  can  realize  how  primitive  painting,  sculpture,  po- 
etry and  the  novel  would  be  if  their  production  depended 
on  large  mobs  coming  to  museums  or  to  reading-rooms 
where  a  large  admission  fee  was  charged. 

For  the  psychological  action  which  theatrical  per- 
formances exert  upon  audiences  I  refer  the  reader  to  the 
analytical  studies  of  various  modern  plays  published  by 
Jelliffe. 

The  puritanical  attitude  which  manifests  itself  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  communities  toward  certain  forms  of  art  and  is 
especially  noticeable  in  the  literary  field  receives  at 
Freud's  hands  an  interesting  interpretation.  He  has  no- 
ticed that  many  sexual  perverts,  struggling  against  their 
perversion,  are  apt  to  engage  In  public  activities  tending 
to  a  repression  of  all  the  possible  sex  manifestations. 
Fearful  of  being  tempted,  they  seek  to  remove  all  temp- 
tation. What  to  them,  however,  constitutes  a  strong 
temptation  is  seldom  a  powerful  stimulus  for  any  normal 
subject. 

The  puritan  overcompensates  his  Inferiority  by  the 
standing  he  acquires  in  a  gullible  community,  by  his  as-, 
sumption  of  righteousness  and  by  the  power  which  the 
police  authorities  allow  him  to  assume.  He  also  satisfies 
the  peeping  craving  which  is  strong  in  certain  perverts 
and  he  derives  much  pleasure  from  beholding  the  sins  of 


136  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Others.  The  day  will  probably  come  when  the  community 
win  realize  the  danger  of  leaving  such  manic  perverts  at 
large  and  will  send  them  for  treatment  to  the  psycho- 
pathic ward  Instead  of  letting  them  sit  In  judgment  upon 
art  matters. 

A  word  should  be  said  In  closing  about  the  form  of 
fiction  which  we  might  call  anxiety  stories.  Much  of  what 
was  said  about  "  anxiety  dreams  "  can  be  repeated  In 
dealing  with  the  harrowing  stories,  which  "  make  our 
flesh  creep  or  our  hair  stand  on  end."  They  provide  an 
outlet  for  our  self-protection  urge,  which  In  many  situa- 
tions is  repressed  for  fear  of  social  disgrace.  Anyone 
familiar  with  the  functioning  of  the  autonomic  nervous 
system  will  easily  realize  that  the  excitement  produced 
by  that  sort  of  stories,  or  plays  and  to  which  corresponds 
the  releasing  of  adrenin  In  the  blood  and  the  mobilization 
of  sugar,  which  Imparts  a  sense  of  power.  Is  a  great  com- 
pensation for  inactive  lives  and  for  any  feeling  of  inferi- 
ority which  might  be  unconsciously  present  in  the  reader 
or  beholder. 

These  stories  also  gratify  the  sadistic  tendency  latent 
in  everyone,  and  which  makes  mobs  run  to  fires  or  congre- 
gate on  streets  In  case  of  accidents. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   URGES   AND   THE   ARTS 

A  PSYCHOLOGICAL  Study  of  painting,  sculpture  and 
music  will  be  possible  only  when  we  have  acquired  a  more 
complete  understanding  of  the  chemical  unconscious.  I 
stated  in  Chapter  II  that  heliotropism  played  a  tremen- 
dous part  in  the  actions  (likes  and  dislikes)  of  many  ani- 
mals. The  sunlight  or  certain  colors  seem  to  rob  some 
of  them  of  their  will-power,  which  can  be  restored  to  them 
by  the  adding  of  certain  chemicals  to  their  food  or  their 
environment.  In  Chapter  V  we  have  seen  that  red  and 
blue  seemed  to  have,  the  world  over,  a  sexual  significance. 

Colors  in  certain  combinations  lose  their  affective 
power  or  again  have  it  Increased,  as  Chevreul's  studies 
show.  The  synchromist  school  of  painting  has  "  felt  " 
that  colors  are  apt  to  produce  on  the  retina  a  sense  of 
spatial  location. 

We  know  that  a  certain  sound  at  a  certain  pitch  will 
lower  all  the  vital  activities  and  induce  sleep  while  an- 
other sound  may  throw  one  Into  a  frenzy,  regardless  of 
acquired  associations  such  as  the  "  martial  "  tone  of  the 
trumpet  or  the  "  bucolic  "  sound  of  the  flute,  etc. 

Great  rhythmic  regularity  characterises  the  old  songs, 
especially  the  oldest  lullabies,  and  regularity  of  pattern 
characterises  all  old  drawings  and  engravings.  I  have 
reduced  several  hundred  old  folksongs  to  one  geometrical 

137 


138  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

pattern,  four  almost  equal  pyramids,  whose  base  and  apex 
never  overlap  the  limits  of  the  ^tave. 

Similar  observations  could  probably  be  made  on  shapes, 
thus  bringing  us  closer  to  an  understanding  of  the  gratifi- 
cation supplied  by  sculpture.  Thus  far  I  am  not  aware 
that  any  such  research  work  has  ever  been  undertaken. 

Music  is  probably  the  oldest  of  all  the  arts,  for  the 
first  song  originated  when  the  first  combination  of  sighs, 
groans  or  shouts  was  repeated  after  being  found  pleasing, 
or  when  the  emission  of  some  sound  accompanying  some 
physical  motion  was  found  to  add  a  certain  pleasure  to 
that  motion.  The  enormous  importance  which  rhythm 
has  in  music  undoubtedly  points  to  an  extremely  ancient 
origin. 

From  the  first  period  in  music  probably  date  dance 
music,  religious  music,  the  accompaniments  to  the  old 
epic  songs,  all  the  combinations  of  sounds  which  facili- 
tated through  rhythm  some  regular  physical  action, 
marching,  swinging  a  censer,  reciting  a  long-winded  story, 
memorizing  ritual  words. 

The  second  period  of  the  world  produced  hedonistic 
music,  music  for  enjoyment,  either  personal  or  collective, 
and  unrelated  to  any  utilitarian,  religious  or  ritual  pur- 
pose. 

This  is  the  type  of  music  that  the  musically  uneducated 
are  more  apt  to  relish.  It  simply  caresses  the  nerve  ends 
and  is  of  a  perfectly  sensuous  character.  We  might  place 
promiscuously  in  the  hedonistic  class  composers  like  Cho- 
pin, Mendelssohn,  Tosti  and  Irving  Berlin.  That  sort 
of  music  is  most  favored  by  soloists  and  audiences  which 
go  to  hear  soloists,  and  seek  not  so  much  musical  enjoy- 
ment as  nervous  excitement  associated  with  the  playing 


THE    URGES   AND   THE    ARTS  I39 

of  very  sensuous  tunes  or  the  performance  of  very  diffi- 
cult passages  on  a  violin  or  piano.  Solo  music,  with  its 
romantic  tinge,  corresponds  closely  to  the  stories  of  ad- 
venture and  blood  curdling  tales  of  the  second  period  in 
literature. 

The  third  period  Is  represented  by  Wagner  and  Strauss 
and  all  the  composers  who  have  attempted  musical  char- 
acter-drawing. Types  and  moods  being  represented 
musically  by  "  leit  motifs,"  the  enjoyment  of  this  type  of 
composition  requires  a  certain  training  of  the  memory, 
which  must  retain  the  meaning  of  many  musical  symbols. 
Unless  we  are  intimately  acquainted  with  the  various 
themes  representing  for  Instance,  Siegfried,  Siegfried  the 
fearless,  Siegfried  the  hero,  Siegfried  the  Impetuous, 
Siegfried  the  protector  or  the  NIbelung,  the  NIbelung's 
hate,  the  NIbelung's  power,  the  NIbelung's  servitude  and 
can  distinguish  between  the  motives  characterising  Hagen, 
Freia  or  Brunnhlld,  our  pretense  of  enjoying  Wagner  is 
preposterous. 

This  Is  an  artificial  medium  of  expression  which  In  the 
hands  of  men  less  skilled  than  Wagner  or  Strauss  would 
have  produced  deplorable  results.  Their  powerful  per- 
sonalities alone  saved  the  day. 

Modern  music  Is  drifting  away  very  fast  from  the 
hedonistic  stage  and  the  character-drawing  stage.  Char- 
acter-drawing especially  seems  to  be  doomed  to  a  complete 
death,  for  the  memory  of  music-lovers  would  be  sorely 
taxed  should  twenty-five  Wagners  compel  us  to  mem- 
orize their  musical  symbols  under  penalty  of  not  under- 
standing their  works  except  from  the  point  of  view 
of  whatever  mere  hedonist  gratification  they  might 
give  us. 


I40  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

The  egotistical  stage  in  music  goes  rather  far  back  in 
the  history  of  that  art.  Making  allowances  for  the  ob- 
stacles raised  in  the  path  of  men  like  Bach  and  Beethoven 
by  the  scholastic  superstitions  of  their  days,  the  use  of 
artificial  forms  such  as  the  fugue,  the  symphony  or  the 
sonata,  which  destroy  spontaneity,  much  of  what  Bach 
and  Beethoven  wrote  belongs  to  the  fourth  period 
of  musical  development.  Unmindful  of  the  audience, 
never  seeking  prettiness,  they  were  among  the  pioneers 
who  thought  that  a  combination  of  sounds  must  be  inter- 
esting because  It  originated  in  their  brain.  Debussy, 
Ornstein  and  Scriablne  are  characteristic  at  the  present 
day  of  that  egotistical  tendency. 

Free  rhythm,  dissonance,  absence  of  returning  motives 
characterise  the  modern  school  in  which  every  composer 
is  naturally  a  law  unto  himself. 

The  pictorial  arts  were  undoubtedly  created  at  first  by 
sexual  urglngs.  For  thousands  of  years  genital  organs 
were  the  first  models  of  primitive  sculptors  and  engravers. 
Of  primitive  painting  we  know  little,  owing  to  the  perish- 
able character  of  its  products.  Sculptured  stones  and 
drawings  on  the  walls  of  archaic  caves,  however,  leave 
us  no  doubt'as  to  what  inspired  the  first  artists.  Most  of 
those  specimens  have  been  gradually  removed  from 
museums  owing  to  the  wave  of  sexual  repression  which 
began  in  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages,  but  specimens  of 
Asiatic  art  and  the  results  of  excavations  in  the  "  dead 
cities  "  of  Italy  reveal  what  place  the  representation  of 
sexual  subjects  occupied  In  relatively  modern  art.  Even 
religious  buildings  were  not  free  from  such  fancies  and 
old  cathedrals  all  over  Europe  show  a  display  of  many 
*'  obscene  "   subjects.     Primitive  drawings  began  early, 


THE    URGES    AND   THE    ARTS  I4I 

however,  to  show  the  promptings  of  the  ego  or  power 
urge.  Cavemen  of  5000  B.  C,  like  the  mighty  hunters  of 
our  days,  were  apt  to  boast  of  their  killings,  and,  ignorant 
of  taxidermy,  represented  on  the  walls  of  their  caves 
either  the  mastodons  they  slaughtered  or  the  herds  of 
elks  they  owned.  To  that  period  we  are  also  indebted 
for  the  first  representatives  of  anthropomorphic  gods, 
totem  animals  and  other  cultural  representations. 

The  second  age  found  gratification  in  these  represen- 
tations of  living  animals  and  employed  them  more  and 
more  for  their  ornamental  value.  The  first  utensils  car- 
ried the  likenesses  of  various  animals,  stylized  and  in 
symmetrical  repetition.  Temples  were  adorned  with  fig- 
ures of  gods  and  goddesses,  imitating  the  utmost  perfec- 
tion of  the  human  body.  This  is  the  period  of  intense 
personal  adornment,  the  "  beauty  stage  "  in  the  pictorial 
arts.  Greek  art  of  the  classical  period  typifies  well  that 
second  stage,  or  "  beauty  stage." 

About  the  eleventh  century,  at  least  so  far  as  Europe 
is  concerned  the  craving  for  beauty  passed  away,  and 
character-drawing  began  in  the  pictorial  arts. 

The  transition  is  clearly  observable  in  monuments  like 
the  Rheims  cathedral  where  certain  sculptors  carved 
statues  which  remind  one  of  Greek  art,  while  others,  more 
modern,  only  sought  to  achieve  a  strong  characterisation, 
regardless  of  the  pleasing  or  unpleasant  character  of  the 
result  thus  obtained. 

The  Italian  and  German  Renaissances  are  character- 
ised by  the  desire  to  create  types.  Leonardo  Da  Vinci 
and  Albrecht  Diirer  are  indifferent  to  beauty.  Mona  Lisa 
is  not  beautiful,  neither  is  Erasmus,  but  both  are  them- 
selves.    Cranach  intensified  that  research  of  character  In 


142  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

a  grotesque  way,  as  shown  by  his  Impossible  "  Paris  and 
the  three  goddesses,"  in  which,  in  order  to  differentiate 
the  three  female  figures  he  clothes  them  in  a  preposterous 
way,  or  causes  them  to  assume  ridiculous  poses.  El 
Greco,  Rembrandt,  Houdon,  Millet  and  Rodin  are  rep- 
resentative of  the  third  stage  in  the  pictorial  arts. 

It  was  not  until  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century 
that  the  egotistical  stage  was  reached  in  the  pictorial  art. 
It  began  with  the  first  attempt  at  landscape  painting. 
Before  Turner,  Corot  or  Daubigny,  a  landscape  played  in 
painting  the  part  which  scenery  plays  in  a  modern  play- 
house. It  supplied  a  background  for  the  actors,  for  the 
figures,  for  the  "  story." 

Landscapists  began  to  impose  their  ego  upon  the  world 
by  deciding  that  the  "  story  "  was  no  longer  necessary  and 
that  a  landscape  which  interested  them  should  interest 
everybody  else.  From  painting  a  certain  landscape  be- 
cause the  combination  of  colors  and  masses  found  in  it 
appeals  to  the  painter's  senses  and  gives  him  gratification 
to  the  complete  abolition  of  the  subject  and  its  replace- 
ment by  color  and  mass  effect,  not  based  upon  recogniz- 
able objects,  there  is  but  a  short  step. 

For  material  reasons,  sculpture  has  lagged  slightly 
behind  painting  but  it  follows  painting  as  fast  as  Its  many 
fetters  will  let  It. 

The  monotony  of  the  modern  world  which  we  men- 
tioned In  Chapter  VIII  Is  responsible  for  the  ego  flarings 
which  characterise  the  ultra-modern  art.  The  stan- 
dardization of  modern  life  makes  It  imperative  for  cer- 
tain Individuals  to  express  violently,  without  any  regard 
for  the  cravings  of  other  Individuals,  certain  cravings  of 
theirs    for    certain    combinations    of    colors    or    shapes. 


THE    URGES    AND    THE    ARTS  I43 

Hence  the  great  variety  of  schools  in  painting.  The  fu- 
turists, enamored  of  motion,  translate  into  color  the  pro- 
cess of  the  cinematograph  which  consists  in  showing  us 
the  same  figure  in  successive  positions;  Matisse  and  his 
followers  are  essentialists  who  seek  to  convey  their  vision 
by  the  smallest  profile  number  of  lines  and  the  greatest 
economy  of  color. 

Cezanne  and  his  imitators  are  Intent  on  giving  us  the 
impression  of  volume.  The  synchromists  are  seeking  a 
new  perspective  based  on  the  spatial  location  of  the  vari- 
ous colors  of  the  prism;  Picabia  sees  the  world  in  the 
shape  of  machinery;  Kandinsky  relies  on  apparently  un- 
related patches  of  color  representing  absolutely  nothing 
and  quite  as  haphazardly  disposed  as  the  colors  of  a  pic- 
turesque sunset. 

Painting,  sculpture  and  music  furnish  a  compensation 
for  many  of  the  unpleasant  features  of  the  modern  world. 
Colorists  compensate  for  the  greyness  of  life,  sculpture  of 
the  second  period  gives  us  back  the  beautiful  bodies  which 
clothing  conceals  from  us,  music  may  atone  for  the  hideous 
or  monotonous  noises  of  modern  cities.  As  Jelllffe  says, 
"  We  might  almost  call  modern  art  a  form  of  psycho- 
therapy." 

Dancing  has  gone  through  the  same  process  of  develop- 
ment observable  in  the  other  arts. 

The  dance  was  at  first  a  religious-sexual  manifestation, 
later  a  rhythmical  compensation  for  the  arhythmic  charac- 
ter of  life.  The  second  period  may  be  typified  by  ballet 
dancing,  of  the  Pavlova  type.  Dancers  like  Ruth  St. 
Denis  and  Maud  Allan  represent  the  third,  or  character- 
drawing,  period.  Finally  some  of  Isadora  Duncan's  work 
corresponds  to  the  personal  ego  period. 


144  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

From  the  foregoing  only  one  conclusion  can  be  drawn: 
no  one  standard  holds  good  on  the  various  periods  of  art. 
We  may  describe  art  as  manifesting  a  greater  or  smaller 
degree  of  ego  development,  and  decide  that  the  larger 
the  proportion  of  egotism  it  reveals  the  more  advanced  it 
is.  Beauty,  or  moral  fitness,  etc.,  should  be  completely 
abandoned  as  the  basis  of  criticism.  Art-criticism  is  at 
best  an  expression  of  personal  convictions,  not  binding  for 
anyone  else,  and  in  our  modern  civilization,  that  personal 
opinion  is  greatly  diluted  with  a  desire  not  to  frighten  ad- 
vertising art-dealers,  musicians  or  publishers  from  the  col- 
umns of  a  publication. 

As  personality  seems  to  be  the  element  of  survival  in 
the  third  and  fourth  periods  it  may  be  that  works  of  art 
could  be  "  judged  "  by  that  test,  the  judgment  being  sim- 
ply a  guess  as  to  the  possible  duration  of  their  popularity. 
Any  talk  of  eternal  standards  is  childish. 

The  human  race  is  made  up  of  individuals  who,  accord- 
ing to  their  degree  of  development,  may  be  divided  into 
^infants,  children,  adolescents  and  adults.  The  woman 
who  called  on  Whistler  and  stated  that  she  knew  nothing 
about  art  but  knew  what  she  liked,  was  a  better  psycholo- 
gist than  the  average  art-critic.  We  do  not  know  what 
her  stage  of  development  was,  but  the  works  of  art  cor- 
responding to  that  stage  probably  compensated  her  for 
what  people  in  her  stage  of  development  were  lacking  or 
missing  or  craving.  And  this  is  about  all  that  can  be  said. 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  skill  in  art,  as  there  is  in  all 
trades,  and  a  writer,  a  composer  or  a  painter  may  be  un- 
skilled in  their  craft  and  hence  fail  to  produce  effects 
which  a  better  trained  artisan  would  produce  with  a  mini- 


THE    URGES   AND   THE    ARTS  I45 

mum  of  effort  and  without  waste  of  material.  But  as 
skill  is  probably  the  prime  requisite  of  every  human  pro- 
ductive effort,  no  critical  theory  could  be  built  on  that 
basis. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FORMS    OF   ABNORMAL    COMPENSATION 

We  have  seen  that  the  human  organism  is  supplied  with 
many  safety-valves.      Some  of  them,  however,  may  func- 
tion improperly,  some  not  at  all.     Situations  may  arise 
which  prevent  all  of  them  at  once   from   relieving  the 
pressure    in    the    human    boiler.     Oversensitiveness    to 
sounds,  for  instance,  may  cause  sleeplessness,  which  robs 
the  individual  of  the  great  compensation  and  relief  af- 
forded by  dreams.     This  may  explain  why,  to  some  peo- 
ple, sleeplessness  is  so  unbearable.     To  people  living  in 
great  isolation,  to  dwellers  on  lonely  farms,  the  forms  of 
relief  described  in  our  chapter  on  the  psychology  of  every- 
day life  are  reduced  to  a  minimum.     The  large  number  of 
trifling  symptomatic  actions,  which  in  a  lively  and  varied 
environment  relieve  the  pressure  of  the  urges,  are  replaced 
by  a  few  unpleasant  acts,  whose  violence  or  bitterness 
cause  a  rebound  worse  than  the  relief  they  afford.     Wit 
is  stifled  easily  by  an  unfavorable  environment,  or  trans- 
formed   into    a    double-edged    weapon.     Self-expression 
through  art  is  impossible  in  thousands  of  cases,  or  at  least 
appears   so.     Individual   restraint   due  to  imprisonment 
provides  no  outlet  for  sexual  or  egotistical  promptings. 

As  long  as  the  human  machine  runs  smoothly,  the  rou- 
tine of  life  may  continue  indefinitely,  however  grey  and 
uninteresting  it  may  be.     Let  the  machine,  on  the  other 

146 


FORMS  OF  ABNORMAL  COMPENSATION     147 

hand,  receive  a  sudden  jolt,  of  a  physical  or  emotional 
nature,  and  the  pressure  may  burst  the  boiler  at  its  weak- 
est point.  That  weakest  point  is  often  determined  by 
some  inferior  organ. 

The  repressed  urges  then  overpower  us  and  force  them- 
selves into  our  consciousness  in  a  distorted  form  which 
conceals  their  actual  meaning. 

When  inferior  organs  or,  in  other  words,  an  environ- 
ment too  powerful  to  be  modified  by  inferior  organs, 
make  the  various  forms  of  normal  compensation  unattain- 
able, a  neurosis  sets  in  and  supplies  compensation  in  an 
abnormal  way. 

As  every  organ  probably  has  a  memory  of  its  own, 
the  inferior  organ  projects  its  memories  into  the  mind, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  in  the  form  of  memory  dis- 
turbances, amnesia  or,  on  the  contrary,  of  stressed  mem- 
ories of  an  hallucinatory  character. 

On  the  basis  of  compensation  for  some  organ  inferior- 
ity, Adler  says,  abnormal  ideas  may  develop,  affecting  the 
function  of  the  will  and  the  perception  of  pleasure  and 
displeasure.  From  the  motor  portion  of  the  compensat- 
ing structure  arise  all  the  phenomena  of  the  neurosis, 
which  are  all  important  as  motor  discharges:  tics,  cramps, 
epilepsy,  etc. 

In  the  infantile  anomalies  to  which  are  ascribed  mas- 
turbatory  characteristics,  thumb-sucking,  anal-touching, 
etc.,  we  can  observe  the  search  of  pleasure  characteristic 
of  the  inferior  mouth,  intestine,  genitals.  In  other  words 
some  inferior  organ  presents  the  point  of  least  resistance 
through  which  the  urges  seek  their  abnormal  compensa- 
tion. 

Jung  does  not  seek  the  cause  of  a  neurosis  in  the  mental 


148'  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

or  physical  past  but  in  the  present.  Infantile  predispo- 
sitions and  habits,  organ  inferiority,  do  not  appear  to  him 
as  important  as  the  actual  problems  of  the  patient's  life, 
clamoring  for  a  solution. 

Jung  always  wishes  to  know  what  the  necessary  task 
is  which  the  patient  unconsciously  refuses  to  accomplish. 
He  sees  in  the  psychological  troubles  of  a  neurosis  and  in 
the  neurosis  itself  an  attempt  at  adaptation  which  has 
failed.  People  who  for  some  reason  are  unable  to  accept 
the  well  established  line  of  normal  adaptation,  whose  aims 
and  tasks  are  likely  to  be  of  a  highly  individual  character, 
are  apt  to  select  an  abnormal  or  primitive  form  of  adapta- 
tion, and  thus  they  follow  the  line  of  least  effort. 

The  neurotic  has  the  soul  of  a  child,  unwilling  to  endure 
the  arbitrary  limitations  of  present  life.  He  tries  to 
adopt  the  moral  standard  of  his  environment,  but,  by  so 
doing,  only  falls  into  deeper  disunion  and  disharmony 
with  himself.  The  neurotic  symptom  is  a  symptom  of 
that  struggle.  It  is  an  indirect  expression  of  unconscious 
wishes  which,  if  they  were  conscious,  would  conflict  with 
the  neurotic's  moral  and  ethical  views.  There  are  many 
patients,  for  instance,  who  boast  of  being  absolutely  in- 
different to  the  sexual  conflict.  Those  people  do  not  see 
that  their  sexuality,  which  they  consider  as  entirely  re- 
pressed, transforms  itself  into  and  gratifies  itself  abnor- 
mally through  physical  symptoms  which  torture  them  and 
their  environment. 

On  this  point,  there  is  almost  complete  agreement  be- 
tween Jung  and  Adler.  To  Adler,  the  whole  army  of 
neurotic  symptoms,  blushing,  headache,  migraine,  faint- 
ing, pains,  tremors,  depression,  etc.,  can  be  traced  to  what 
he  calls  "  ready-for-use  attitudes."     The  patient  is  not 


FORMS   OF   ABNORMAL    COMPENSATION  I49 

malingering,  for  malingering  is  a  conscious  process.  But, 
from  the  memory  of  earlier  defects,  a  state  of  apparent 
stupidity,  deafness,  limping,  untidiness,  lack  of  appetite, 
nausea,  may  be  retained.  The  unconscious  mind  grad- 
ually evolves  out  of  those  ready-prepared  psychic  attitudes 
certain  habits  to  which  the  patient  holds  fast  in  his  fear 
of  being  neglected,  certain  mental  leanings  which  give  the 
neurosis  a  definite  direction.  "  The  unconsciously  re- 
membered defect  responds  to  the  craving  for  gratification 
as  the  skilled  fingers  of  a  pianist  naturally  respond  to  the 
demands  of  a  difficult  passage." 

Adler  answers  as  follows  the  objection  which  the  gen- 
eral public  Is  likely  to  make  when  told  that  suffering  may 
constitute  a  form  of  "  gratification  "  for  repressed  urges: 

"  How  shall  the  severe  suffering  of  a  neurosis,  the  ter- 
rible pain  of  trigeminal  neuralgia.  Insomnia,  paralysis,  mi- 
graine, all  be  thrown  Into  the  bargain  as  a  means  to  an 
end?  I  have  myself  struggled  against  this  conviction 
which  thrust  Itself  upon  me.  Is  the  case  much  different 
when  human  beings  endure  all  sorts  of  hardships  for  a 
whole  life-time  in  order  to  attain  some  worthless  bubble? 
Neurotic  symptoms  are  In  many  cases  a  means  of  obtain- 
ing mastery  over  some  other  person.  For  Instance,  nu- 
merous writers  have  suggested  that  migraine  can  be  in- 
herited. We  must  give  up  the  idea  of  the  inherltablllty 
of  migraine  as  we  were  obliged  to  give  up  Its  organic 
etiology.  Migraine  Is  one  of  the  neurotic  affections  which 
serve  to  secure  mastery  In  the  household.  A  patient  hav- 
ing observed  the  power  her  mother  derived  from  her  at- 
tacks of  migraine  Imitates  her  unconsciously  and  succeeds 
in  doing  what  primeval  man  did  when  he  made  himself 
gods  which  afterward  filled  him  with  terror." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE    OEDIPUS    COMPLEX 

Before  proceeding  to  describe  the  neuroses,  we  must 
discuss  at  length  a  phenomenon  called  the  "  Oedipus  com- 
plex," due  to  a  "  faulty  relation  between  children  and 
parents  instigated  by  incestuous  longings  "  and  which 
Freud  and  his  followers  consider  as  "  the  central  complex 
of  the  neurosis." 

Freud  realized  that  such  a  thesis  would  not  be  accepted 
readily  by  the  medical  and  the  lay  world  and  in  "  Totem 
and  Taboo  "  he  writes:  "  This  discovery  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  incest  for  the  neurosis  naturally  meets  with  the 
most  general  incredulity  on  the  part  of  the  grown-up, 
normal  man.  .  .  .  Such  a  rejection  is,  above  all,  the  pro- 
duct of  man's  deep  aversion  to  his  former  incest-wishes 
which  have  since  succumbed  to  repression." 

Out  of  some  one  hundred  prostitutes  examined  in  191 1 
by  the  Chicago  Vice  Commission,  one-half  "  confessed  " 
that  they  had  been  first  seduced  by  their  fathers.  Pros- 
titutes the  world  over  are  apt  to  tell  the  same  story,  mak- 
ing it  at  times  more  romantic  by  saying  that  their  fa- 
ther was  a  well  known,  rich,  powerful  man  and  that  they 
had  to  "  disappear  "  to  save  his  reputation. 

Even  if  we  consider  that  suspicious  selection  of  a  scape- 
goat with  the  utmost  scepticism,  we  cannot  escape  the 

fact  that  so  many  of  them  selected  the  same  scapegoat, 

150 


THE    OEDIPUS    COMPLEX  I51 

and  that  If  their  father  did  not  seduce  them,  at  least  their 
mind  had  dwelt  upon  that  possibility,  had  become  recon- 
ciled to  it  and  perhaps  admitted  its  reality. 

The  very  presence  of  such  a  fancy  in  the  minds  of  so 
many  women  points  to  something  which  is  more  than 
accidental. 

We  have  seen  in  Chapter  VI  how  frequently  a  more  or 
less  veiled  incest-motive  appeared  in  the  folklore  of  all 
races.  Otto  Rank  has  shown  that  it  forms  the  material 
of  poetry  in  countless  variations  and  distortions. 

Even  at  the  present  day,  incest-wishes  appear  so  dan- 
gerous to  primitive  races  that  they  maintain  the  most 
complicated  defensive  measures  against  them,  including 
not  only  torture  but  capital  punishment. 

The  great  question  in  the  child's  unconscious  mind  is, 
"Shall  I  be  like  father  or  like  mother?"  Upon  his 
choice  will  depend  his  normality  or  abnormality  in  later 
life,  whether  his  early  leanings  predispose  him  to  mental 
derangement  or  whether  mental  derangement  leads  him 
back  to  the  situation  in  which  he  found  comfort  during 
his  formative  years. 

The  so  called  "  Oedipus  complex  "  has  for  that  reason 
been  given  a  great  deal  of  attention  by  the  three  schools 
of  analysis,  none  of  which  denies  its  capital  importance. 
Freud,  Jung  and  Adler  have  made  on  this  subject  obser- 
vations of  great  value,  and  any  analysis  disregarding  any 
part  of  their  findings  would  run  the  risk  of  being  woefully 
superficial.  For  the  three  solutions  of  the  problem  of- 
fered by  the  two  Vienna  schools  and  the  Zurich  school  are 
often  necessary  for  the  complete  understanding  of  one 
single  case. 

According  to  Freud,  all  neuroses  have  their  foundations 


152  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

laid  before  the  fifth  year  of  life.  The  impulses  which 
he  designates  as  sexual,  a  term  which  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  genital,  originally  arise  through  the  spon- 
taneous yearning  of  the  child  to  return  to  the  mother's 
body  where  its  prenatal  life  was  perfect,  from  a  physi- 
cal standpoint,  the  child  being  then  protected  against  all 
physical  agencies,  supplied  automatically  with  the  most 
suitable  food,  rocked  pleasantly  while  being  transported 
from  place  to  place,  kept  at  an  even  temperature,  etc. 

We  see  already  why  the  mother's  importance  in  the 
child's  life,  regardless  of  the  child's  sex,  is  so  much  greater 
than  that  of  the  father.  That  importance  had  been 
pointed  out,  long  before  Freud's  theories  were  formu- 
lated, by  a  man  who  was  a  profound  psychologist,  Luther. 
In  the  twentieth  chapter  of  his  "  Table  Discourses  "  he 
wrote :  "  One  can  just  as  little  do  without  women  as  one 
can  go  without  eating  or  drinking.  The  reason  for  this 
is  that  we  were  conceived  in  the  flesh  of  a  woman,  fed 
while  in  a  woman's  body,  born  of  woman,  brought  up  by  a 
woman.  Our  flesh  is  therefore  made  mainly  of  woman's 
flesh  and  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  separate  ourselves  from 
it." 

In  other  words  we  are  never  able  to  cut  off  entirely 
our  navel  string  and  woman  means  infinitely  more  for  man 
and  woman  alike  than  man  could  ever  mean  even  for 
woman. 

The  intense  longing  of  the  child  for  its  mother;  its 
fear  and  anxiety  in  her  absence;  the  comfort  and  security 
it  experiences  when  resting  in  her  arms  are  thus,  in  the 
Freudian  sense,  the  first  impressions  of  primary  sexual 
life. 

The  first  attempt  at  disentanglement  from  the  mother 


THE   OEDIPUS    COMPLEX  I53 

occurs  when  the  nursling  learns  ways  of  its  own  to  se- 
cure certain  pleasurable  sensations  which  until  then  had 
been  connected  with  the  mother's  body.  It  takes  its 
thumb  in  its  mouth  instead  of  the  mother's  nipple,  and 
then  goes  to  sleep  as  it  would  after  nursing.  It  begins 
to  take  an  evident  interest  in  its  own  physical  functions, 
in  which  it  discovers  new  sources  of  pleasure,  urinating 
or  emptying  its  bowels.  Its  entire  body  begins  to  be  a 
source  of  many  new  pleasures.  This  is  the  narcist  period 
characterised  by  an  intense  delight  in  everything  physical 
and  an  enormous  overvaluation  of  one's  self. 

At  puberty  a  more  or  less  sudden  detachment  from 
the  mother  and  one's  self  takes  place,  the  craving  thus 
freed  being  directed  toward  a  human  being  of  the  op- 
posite sex. 

If  a  young  boy  at  the  time  of  puberty  shows  a  definite 
interest  in  little  girls  of  his  age  and  a  girl  is  attracted 
by  boys,  their  parents  may  rest  in  peace.  They  may  have 
to  be  watchful,  but  physically  and  mentally  their  children 
will  probably  be  normal. 

The  boys  or  girls,  who,  after  going  through  the  crisis 
of  puberty  show  no  definite  inclination  to  children  of  the 
opposite  sex,  are  candidates  to  many  forms  of  misery, 
mental  and  physical. 

They  may  have  lingered  in  the  narcist,  auto-erotic  stage, 
which  is  not  adapted  to  modern  civilized  life,  and  they 
will  struggle  against  that  handicap  all  their  lives,  some 
being  merely  discontented  and  some,  broken  by  the  con- 
flict, taking  refuge  in  a  neurosis. 

They  may  have  had  their  sexuality  differentiated  the 
wrong  way,  boys  being  attracted  by  boys,  and  girls  by 
girls. 


154  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

They  may  have  contracted  a  fixation  of  their  affections 
on  their  father  or  their  mother,  and  the  ghost  of  one  of 
the  parents  will  always  haunt  them,  distorting  their  views 
and  making  their  behavior  strange  and  unsocial. 

Father  and  mother  can  unknowingly  pervert  their  chil- 
dren in  the  most  deplorable  way.  I  do  not  mean  unfit  or 
immoral  parents;  quite  the  contrary.  Affectionate  pa- 
rents probably  wreck  the  careers  of  more  children  than 
indifferent  ones. 

The  fond  mother  who  plays  lovingly  with  her  boy  or 
girl  long  after  they  have  ceased  to  be  infants,  who  al- 
lows them  to  come  to  her  bed,  mornings  or  evenings,  who 
lets  herself  be  kissed  and  fondled  by  her  growing  children, 
is  apt  to  develop  in  them  some  ineradicable  abnormality. 
The  boy  may  remain  as  completely  dependent  on  his 
mother  as  when  he  was  a  nursling.  He  will  enjoy  the 
touch  and  the  warmth  of  her  body,  the  softness  of  her 
skin  or  hair,  her  kisses,  her  caresses.  In  that  enjoyment 
there  will  not  be  the  slightest  conscious  intimation  of 
"  sex  ";  it  will  all  be  tenderness  of  the  purest  type,  which 
to  the  ignorant  observer  can  be  but  pleasing  and  touching. 
The  suggestion  that  there  could  be  anything  grossly  physi- 
cal in  such  a  relation  would  very  justly  fill  mother  and 
child  with  resentment. 

And  yet  experience  proves  that  such  a  boy  may  become 
so  accustomed  to  that  form  of  love  that  he  may  never 
be  attracted  by  any  other  woman.  No  other  woman  will 
offer  him  as  readily  sympathy,  comfort,  warm  kisses, 
willing  caresses.  Compared  to  his  mother's  love,  the 
affection  offered  by  any  other  woman  will  appear  cold, 
diffident,  unreliable,  sordid,  a  thing  to  be  conquered,  not 
a  thing  to  be  secured  without  effort.     The  fixation  will  be 


THE   OEDIPUS    COMPLEX  155 

even  more  complete  if  the  mother  is  young,  pretty 
and  can  hold  her  own  physically  as  well  as  intellect- 
ually, against  the  inexperienced,  unsophisticated,  artificial 
young  girls  whom  the  boy  meets  in  his  social  environ- 
ment. 

We  have  all  met  the  old  bachelor  who  is  an  ideal  son, 
and  whom  we  hardly  dare  to  ridicule  when  he  praises  the 
appearance  and  distinction  of  his  homely  or  dowdy 
mother,  when  he  bows  down  to  her  stupid  judgment,  on 
whose  wisdom  he  complacently  dwells.  He  may  marry, 
preferably  after  her  death,  some  woman  older  than  him- 
self, whose  only  attraction  will  be  her  settled,  motherly 
attitude.  If  he  marries  a  younger  woman,  he  will  in 
all  likelihood  make  her  life  unbearable  by  constantly 
pointing  out  the  many  ways  in  which  she  is  inferior  to  his 
mother,  and  compel  her  on  every  occasion  to  submit  to  his 
mother's  authority. 

The  girl  accustom.ed  to  too  much  petting  at  her  moth- 
er's hands  may  develop  more  frankly  sensuous  traits  than 
a  boy  would  in  the  same  situation.  Mother  and  daughter 
being  of  the  same  sex  are  not  restrained  by  the  natural 
reserve  which  imposes  definite  physical  limits  upon  the 
caresses  a  mother  and  her  son  may  properly  exchange. 
Many  young  girls  kiss  their  mother's  neck,  shoulders, 
throat  and  arms  as  a  lover  would,  and  later  in  life  may 
establish  between  the  caresses  of  their  mother  and  those 
of  men  disastrous  comparisons,  as  to  tenderness,  security, 
physical  attraction,  daintiness,  etc.  Girls  trained  that 
way  will  be  dominated  by  their  mothers,  indifferent  to 
men,  will  make  frigid,  nagging  wives,  who  will  insist  on 
referring  all  the  problems  of  the  household  to  their 
mothers  for  a  final  decision  and  will  not  rest  content  until 


156  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

their  husbands  show  their  mothers  the  same  obedience 
they  display. 

Likewise  a  fond  father,  treating  his  boy  or  girls  too 
tenderly,  may  impart  to  them  an  abnormal  disposition. 
The  daughter  of  the  Ellen  Key  type,  who  is  her  father's 
constant  companion,  never  feels  attracted  by  any  man  and 
may  some  day  marry  one  who,  by  his  age  and  appear- 
ance, is  an  almost  perfect  image  of  her  father,  is  a 
type  frequently  met  with,  and  the  result  of  unwise  bring- 
ing up.  ^  , 

For  many  obvious  reasons,  however,  the  mother's  in- 
fluence is  deeper  than  the  father's,  for  there  seldom  is  as 
much  unconscious  sensuality  in  the  attachment  of  the  chil- 
dren for  the  father  as  there  can  be  in  the  attraction  their 
mother  wields  over  them. 

The  fixation  of  the  affections  of  the  children  on  one  of 
the  parents  is  only  one  detail  of  the  picture.  It  is  the 
love  component  of  the  Oedipus  complex;  it  is  generally 
accompanied  by  a  more  sinister  element,  the  element  of 
hate.  The  man  with  a  fixation  on  his  mother  usually 
hates  his  father,  who  is  his  rival;  the  woman  with  a  fixa- 
tion on  her  father  hates  her  mother,  and  this  new  source 
of  conflict,  as  old  as  the  world,  as  a  study  of  folklore 
has  revealed  to  us,  complicates  tragically  the  plot  of  the 
family  romance.  The  disharmony  it  introduces  into  the 
most  important  relationship  in  life  is  quite  capable  of  cre- 
ating the  greatest  unhappiness.  When  we  add  to  this 
the  various  sexual  perversions  attendant  upon  infancy  and 
childhood  fixations,  and  which  shall  be  reviewed  in  the 
next  chapter,  we  can  understand  why  Freud  considered 
the  Oedipus  complex  as  the  most  dangerous  destroyer  of 
mankind's  mental  equilibrium. 


THE    OEDIPUS    COMPLEX  1 57 

Jung  takes  a  slightly  different  view  of  the  situation. 
He  conceives  the  existence  in  the  child  of  a  vital  urge 
extending  far  beyond  sexuality,  even  in  the  broad  sense 
which  Freud  gives  to  the  word.  The  life  urge  manifests 
itself  in  growth,  development,  hunger  and  all  imaginable 
human  activities. 

Although  he  recognizes  with  Freud  the  primal  instinct 
of  reproduction  as  the  basis  of  many  activities,  Jung  re- 
fuses to  call  those  activities  sexual.  While  Freud  sees 
in  infantile  activities  a  sort  of  polymorphous  perversity, 
similar  to  the  perversions  occurring  in  adults  in  later  life, 
Jung  sees  in  those  activities  the  beginnings  of  fully  ripened 
sexuality,  preliminary,  non-perverse  expressions  of  sexual 
coloring. 

It  is  when  it  comes  to  a  discussion  of  the  habits  acquired 
in  childhood  that  we  observe  the  greatest  divergence  of 
views  between  Freud  and  Jung. 

Jung  willingly  recognizes  that  many  neurotics  exhibit 
clearly  in  their  childhood  abnormal  tendencies  which  in 
later  life  will  be  exaggerated,  and  that  the  destiny  of 
those  children  is  deeply  influenced  by  their  parents'  ten- 
derness, overanxiety,  or,  on  the  contrary,  by  their  lack 
of  sympathy  and  understanding.  The  child's  small,  nar- 
row world  is  entirely  dominated  by  the  parents'  influence, 
but  the  child  is  not  conscious  of  that  fact. 

For  that  r-eason,  Jung  does  not  consider  the  father  or 
mother  as  real  persons,  as  a  male  or  a  female,  but  as 
more  or  less  distorted  symbols  created  by  the  imagination 
of  the  individual. 

The  demands  made  by  the  child  upon  the  mother,  the 
jealousy  exhibited  toward  the  father,  are  at  first  connected 
with  the  part  played  by  the  mother,  an  unsexed  provider 


158  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

of  food  and  warmth,  a  protector,  a  help  in  the  satisfaction 
of  natural  wants. 

At  puberty  the  child  abandons  his  dependence  upon  the 
parents  to  become  a  self-assertive  individual.  Upon  the 
measure  in  which  the  process  has  been  completed  will  de- 
pend the  child's  freedom  and  happiness.  And  at  this 
point  Jung  breaks  entirely  with  Freud. 

He  thinks  that  by  going  back  to  infantile  influences, 
the  analyst  is  imposed  upon  by  the  subject  who  tries  to 
withdraw  from  the  present  and  seek  a  convenient  scape- 
goat in  his  own  past. 

The  neurosis,  Jung  thinks,  is  caused  by  the  impending 
necessity  of  performing  some  important  task  before  which 
the  neurotic  shrinks,  because  his  previous  training  has  not 
made  him  strong  enough  or  bold  enough  to  surmount  cer- 
tain obstacles. 

There  occurs  then  a  regression  to  infantile  ways  which 
is  converted  into  symptoms  and  creates  the  external  mani- 
festations of  the  neurosis. 

What  is  the  cause  of  that  regression?  Jung  says  that 
the  dream  phantasies  of  neurotics  are  really  forms  of  com- 
pensation or  artificial  substitutes  for  their  incomplete 
adaptation  to  reality.  Those  phantasies  are  merely  in- 
fantile and  if  they  give  the  impression  of  sexuality,  it  is 
owing  to  the  frankly  sensuous  tinge  which  all  the  activities 
of  infancy  assume. 

Jung  sees  in  the  father  the  predominating  factor  in  the 
child's  life.  The  mother  may  be  the  moulding  force  so 
far  as  the  children  are  concerned,  but  she,  in  turn,  is 
moulded  by  the  father. 

.  His  contentions  are  based  upon  observations  made  by 
one  of  his  pupils.  Dr.  Emma  Fuerst,  on  some  100  persons 


THE    OEDIPUS    COMPLEX  1 59 

belonging  to  24  families.  They  prove  that  the  reaction 
of  parents  and  offspring  are  curiously  similar,  and  that 
the  husband  generally  modifies  the  wife's  reactions  so  that 
after  several  years  of  married  life  the  difference  between 
their  reactions  may  not  be  more  than  1.4%. 

This  is  undoubtedly  true  of  a  number  of  families 
(maybe  of  the  majority  of  families)  of  Latin,  Teutonic 
and  Slav  stock,  and  even  more  so  among  Oriental  races, 
but  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  describes  the  actual  condi- 
tions in  Anglo-Saxon  nations,  in  which  the  domination  of 
the  male  and  the  obedience  of  the  female  are  not  char- 
acteristic features  of  community  and  family  life. 

Adler  presents  the  subject  from  an  entirely  different 
angle. 

Modern  civilization  having  been  established  upon  the 
principle  of  masculine  superiority,  there  is  a  constant 
antithesis,  male-female,  strong-weak,  authority-obedience, 
above-below,  security-insecurity. 

Every  human  being,  normal  or  abnormal,  is  born  with 
what  Nietzsche  calls  the  will-to-power,  and  what  Adler 
calls  the  wish-to-be-above.  Normal  beings  simply  exert 
their  utmost  endeavors  to  reach  that  goal.  Abnormal 
people  on  the  other  hand  are  likely  to  be  worried  in  the 
course  of  their  quest  by  a  feeling  of  inferiority  due  to 
some  real  or  imaginary  organic  deficiency. 

Fearful  of  some  obscure  handicap,  at  times,  indeed, 
absolutely  unconscious  (for  the  individual  with  inferior 
glands,  deficient  secretions,  cannot  know  positively  what 
ails  him)  the  neurotic  expects  defeat.  In  preparation 
for  that  eventuality,  he  seeks  excuses  for  It.  He  then 
takes  refuge  in  fancies  of  a  sexual  character  which  may 
deceive  him  but  which,  Adler  says,  should  not  deceive  the 


l6o  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

analyst.     On  this  point  Adler  and  Jung  are  in  accord. 

A  sickly  girl  who,  during  her  entire  childhood,  leans 
upon  her  strong  and  healthy  father  and  who,  in  doing  so, 
tries  to  rob  her  mother  of  her  superior  position,  may 
comprehend  this  psychic  constellation  in  the  form  of  in- 
cestuous thoughts,  thinking  of  herself  as  though  she  were 
her  father's  wife.  Thereby  her  fictitious  goal  is  at- 
tained. 

Her  insecurity  is  only  abolished  when  she  is  with  her 
father.  By  taking  refuge  in  her  father  she  finds  that 
heightened  ef^o-consciousness  which  she  is  striving  for, 
and  which  she  has  borrowed  from  the  ideals  of  child- 
hood. If  she  recoils  from  a  proffer  of  love  or  marriage, 
the  acceptance  of  which  might  mean  a  lowering  of  her 
ego-consciousness,  she  acts,  so  to  speak,  symbolically;  all 
her  defensive  resources  and  all  her  predispositions  be- 
come arrayed  against  the  prospect  which  marriage  would 
open  to  her,  of  a  female  destiny. 

"  The  greater  her  feelings  of  insecurity,  the  more  stub- 
bornly that  girl  will  cling  to  her  fancy,  the  more  literally 
she  is  likely  to  take  it,  and  as  human  thinking  favors  sym- 
bolic abstractions,  the  patient  will  easily  succeed  (and  so 
will  the  analyst)  in  creating  a  picture  of  incestuous  crav- 

The  constitutionally  inferior  child,  the  unattractive 
child  seeking  love,  the  strictly  brought-up  child,  the  over- 
pampered  child,  all  of  whom  are  candidates  to  a  neurosis, 
seek  more  eagerly  than  strong,  healthy,  independent  chil- 
dren to  avoid  the  hardships  of  existence.  They  long  to 
banish  into  a  distant  future  the  fate  which  will  confront 
them  some  time.  They  fall  back  upon  their  parents,  they 
regress  to  childhood  or  infancy. 


THE   OEDIPUS    COMPLEX  l6l 

In  adjusting  this  principle  to  his  thinking  and  acting, 
in  his  endeavor  to  raise  himself  to  the  level  of  his  strong 
father,  even  if  he  has  (as  some  legendary  heroes  did) 
to  suppress  him,  the  neurotic  removes  himself  from  reality 
and  is  suspended  in  the  meshes  of  his  fiction. 

The  same  applies  to  a  certain  extent  to  normal  children. 
They  too  wish  to  be  big  and  strong  like  their  father. 
Their  fear  of  the  new  is  often  a  mere  desire  to  do  or  say 
the  things  father  did  or  said.  They,  however,  do  not 
resort  to  infantile  phantasies  to  escape  life's  evils.  They 
defeat  the  complexes  which  defeats  the  neurotic. 

The  three  points  of  view  can  be  harmonized  very  easily. 
Sensuality,  authority  and  egotism  may  well  blend  in  the 
unconscious  boy  of  sixteen  who  is  caressing  his  mother. 
He  may  derive  an  unconscious  or  a  conscious  pleasure 
from  touching  her  fresh  skin;  he  may  also  submit  willingly 
and  lovingly  to  her  authority;  and  he  may  have  in  her 
company  a  deep  sense  of  security. 

One  of  these  three  elements  may  predominate,  or  one 
or  two  may  be  entirely  absent. 

A  boy  may  hate  his  father  because  he  begrudges  him 
some  happy  moments  he  might  pass  with  his  mother,  or 
because  his  father  robs  him  of  a  loved  plaything.  He 
may  resent  the  fact  that  his  ideal  in  life  submits  itself 
to  the  caprices  of  another  human  being;  his  ego  may  feel 
diminished  because  his  sense  of  ownership  of  his  mother 
is  directly  challenged.  ^ 

As  the  task  of  analysis  consists  in  making  all  the  ele- 
ments of  a  neurosis  conscious  to  the  subject,  the  reader 
can  readily  see  that  neither  the  Freudian,  nor  the  Jungian, 
nor  the  Adlerian  view  should  be  ignored  in  unraveling 
the  riddle  of  the  unconscious. 


1 62  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

There  are  three  ways  of  approaching  the  problem  of 
parental  influence  in  neurosis,  three  points  of  vantage 
from  which  to  attack  the  enemy.  A  superficial  arvey 
of  folk-legends  shows  us  these  three  points  of  view  repre- 
sented in  the  dreams  and  broodings  of  mankind. 

The  archaic  gods  killed  or  castrated  their  fathers. 
Jesus  sacrifices  himself,  and  then  father  and  son  renounce 
the  mother,  who  becomes  a  virgin.  Sargon,  son  of  a 
virgin,  eliminates  his  father  by  disclaiming  any  knowledge 
of  his  Identity.  Oedipus  kills  his  father  and  marries  his 
mother.  Aun,  King  of  Sweden,  had  to  kill  a  son  of  his 
every  nine  years  to  prolong  his  life,  each  time  nine  years 
more.  Siegfried  seeks  the  mother-image  and  finds  it  in 
his  aunt,  Brunhilde.  The  hunted  and  wounded  Sieg- 
mund  finds  motherly  sympathy  and  care  In  his  sister,  Sieg- 
linde.  Electra,  seeking  the  security  she  lost  when  her 
father  died,  lavishes  love-words  upon  his  substitute, 
Orestes,  and  goads  him  Into  avenging  Agamemnon.  The 
obedience  of  Tzarevitsh  Ivan  to  his  father  and  his  stren- 
uous quest  of  the  Fire  Bird  are  prompted  by  a  desire  to 
Inherit  his  father's  kingdom  and  to  assume  his  lofty  posi- 
tion by  eliminating  him.  Princess  Sesselya,  pursued  by 
her  father,  finally  yields  to  his  substitute,  the  old  king  of 
the  neighboring  land. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE    NEUROSES,    EPILEPSIES    AND    PSYCHOSES 

The  accepted  classification  of  the  various  mental  dis- 
turbances is  a  convenience  rather  than  a  scientific  perform- 
ance. There  hardly  ever  Is  a  clear-cut  type  of  neurosis  or 
psychosis  which  does  not  present  the  symptoms  of  some 
other  neurosis  or  psychosis.  The  names  of  the  various 
mental  disturbances  are  at  best  an  indication  of  the  dom- 
inant symptom  of  each  disturbance.  The  medical  world 
will  In  all  likelihood  accept  in  the  future  the  new  classifica- 
tion proposed  by  Kempf  In  his  recent  address  before  the 
American  Psychopathologlcal  Association. 

The  terms  dementia  praecox,  war  neuroses,  paranoia, 
manic-depressive  Insanity,  etc.,  have  been  completely  dis- 
pensed with  and  entirely  new  terms  created  which  are  ap- 
plied to  the  mechanisms  Involved  In  the  case  and  not  to 
the  symptoms. 

"  The  prefixes  acute,  periodic  or  chronic,  then  benign  or 

pernicious  are  followed  by  the  type  of  neurosis,  such  as 
»  .  .  .  ,. 

suppression,  repression,  compensatory,  regression  or  dis- 
sociation neurosis.  Two  or  more  terms,  such  as  repres- 
sion-compensatory or  repression-regression,  may  be  used 
to  define  the  type  of  the  neurosis  when  It  Is  complicated. 
The  difference  between  benign  and  pernicious  lies  In  that 
the  benign  neuroses  are  characterised  by  the  individual 
being  Inclined  to  accept  the  disease  or  distress  as  due  to 

ungratifiable  cravings,  whereas,  In  the  pernicious  mechan- 

163 


1 64  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ism,  he  tends  to  hate  those  who  would  attribute  the  dis- 
turbance to  a  personal  cause  or  wish  and  he  maintains 
that  it  is  due  to  an  impersonal  cause  or  a  mahcious  in- 
fluence. 

"  In  the  suppression  neurosis,  the  patient  is  aware  of 
the  nature  and  influence  of  the  wish  but  does  not  allow 
it  to  dominate  his  behavior.  In  the  repression  neurosis 
he  prevents  the  wish  from  causing  him  to  be  conscious  of 
its  existence  or  influence. 

"  The  compensatory  neuroses  are  characterised  by 
striving  to  develop  functions  that  will  compensate  for 
some  organic  or  functional  inferiority  or  keep  the  unde- 
sirable craving  repressed.  In  the  regression  neurosis,  the 
individual  falls  back  to  a  lower,  preceding,  Irresponsible 
level,  wherein  he  can  permit  the  perversely  conditioned 
segments  to  seek  gratification  through  symbols  and 
fancies,  imitative  of  reality  and  through  overt  behavior 
without  remorse. 

"  In  the  dissociation  neuroses,  the  intolerable  cravings 
dominate  the  individual's  behavior  despite  the  ego's  strug- 
gle to  prevent  It,  and,  causing  obsessions,  phobias,  compul- 
sions, mannerisms,  hallucinations,  delusions,  etc.  (the  va- 
rious psychoses  of  the  old  terminology)  obtain  gratifica- 
tion in  the  same  manner  as  the  intragastric  Itching  of  the 
stomach,  hunger,  causes  thoughts  and  hallucinations,  dur- 
ing sleep  or  privations,  about  getting  and  eating  food." 

Kempf's  view  was  derived  from  the  analysis  of  a  large 
number  of  cases  of  graver  psychoses,  including  so-called 
hysterias,  manic-depressives,  paranoias,  dementia  praecox 
(paranoid,  catatonic,  hebephrenic,  simple,  epileptoid)  pa- 
retic, arterloslerotic  disturbances  and  intoxication  delirias. 

He  is  inclined  to  regard  the  neurosis  and  psychosis  as 


THE    NEUROSES,    EPILEPSIES    AND    PSYCHOSES       1 65 

"  eccentric  biological  deviations  produced  by  organic  dis- 
eases, or  distortions  of  the  autonomic-affective  cravings, 
the  latter  in  turn  being  caused  by  distressing  experiences." 

In  a  private  communication  dated  August  19,  19 19, 
Kempf  expresses  himself  as  follows  on  the  distinction 
usually  drawn  between  neuroses  and  psychoses :  "  I  see  no 
reason  for  using  the  term  '  psychosis  '  except  to  designate 
types  of  neurosis  which  cause  abnormal  derangements  of 
the  contend  of  consciousness  such  as  hallucinations,  de- 
lusions, uncontrollable  patterns  of  thinking,  phobias,  in- 
spirations, etc.  On  the  other  hand,  the  term  dissociation 
neurosis  covers  the  psychoses  and  has  the  advantage  of 
working  with  the  physiological  problem  involved." 

As  the  literature  of  psychoanalysis,  however,  has  thus 
far  preserved  the  usual  classification,  we  shall  adhere  to  it 
for  the  present,  following  closely  Freud's  description  of 
the  neuroses  and  White's  description  of  the  phychoses. 

Freud  divides  the  neuroses  into  true  neuroses  and 
psycho-neuroses. 

The  true  neuroses  are  neurasthenia  and  anxiety  neu- 
rosis. 

According  to  Freud,  the  cause  of  these  diseases  is  the 
disturbance  of  the  sexual  processes  which  determine  the 
formation  and  utilization  of  the  sexual  libido. 

"  We  can  hardly  avoid  perceiving  these  processes,"  he 
writes,  "  as  being,  in  the  last  analysis,  chemical  in  their 
nature,  so  that  we  recognize  in  the  true  neuroses  the  soma- 
tic effect  of  disturbances  in  the  sexual  metabolism,  which 
in  the  psychoneuroses  we  recognize  besides  the  psychic 
effects  of  the  same  disturbances.  The  resemblance  of  the 
neuroses  to  the  manifestations  of  intoxication  and  absti- 
nence, following  certain  alkaloids,  and  to  Basedow's  and 


1 66  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Addison's  diseases  obtrudes  Itself  clinically  without  any 
further  ado,  and  just  as  these  two  diseases  should  no 
longer  be  described  as  nervous  diseases,  so  will  the  genuine 
neuroses  soon  have  to  be  removed  from  this  class,  despite 
their  nomenclature." 

Adler  warns  us  against  interpreting  too  literally  the 
sexual  aspect  of  the  neuroses.  It  is  essential,  for  instance, 
he  tells  us,  to  discover  at  what  point  a  neurotic  woman 
protests  against  her  femininity.  "  This  point  can  always 
be  found,  for  the  pressure  toward  the  maximation  of  the 
ego  consciousness  necessitates  the  adoption  of  a  reassuring 
guiding  line.  Mannish  fashions  are  affected,  crossed  legs 
and  arms,  a  tendency  to  take,  in  walking,  the  side  which 
a  man  would  take,  or  to  allow  no  one  to  stand  in  front  of 
them,  as  in  dreams.  In  sexual  relations,  anaesthesia  is 
the  rule.  Masculine  variants,  or  those  which  disparage 
man,  are  given  the  preference.  The  masculine  neurotic 
offers  similar  characteristics.  He  identifies  masculinity 
with  sexuality  and  it  is  this  false  artifice  which  fills  his 
thoughts  content  with  sexual  pictures." 

Old  fashioned  psychiatry  used  neurasthenia  as  a  con- 
venient blanket  designation  for  a  number  of  ill-defined 
disturbances  which  were  neither  clear  cases  of  hysteria  nor 
any  of  the  psychoses.  The  word  is  a  misnomer,  for 
most  of  those  disturbances  are  not  nervous  disorders,  but 
merely  states  of  mind. 

Freud  has  drawn  a  definite  distinction  between  true 
neurasthenia  and  anxiety  neurosis,  designating  these  two 
disturbances  as  the  only  true  neuroses. 

By  "  neurasthenia  "  Freud  understands  the  following 
set  of  symptoms:  Pressure  in  the  head,  spinal  irritation, 


THE    NEUROSES,    EPILEPSIES    AND    PSYCHOSES       1 67 

dyspepsia  with  flatulency  and  constipation,  paresthesia, 
diminished  potency  and  emotional  depression. 

He  considers  neurasthenia  as  due  to  exaggerated  sexual 
self-gratification  which  weakens  the  individual's  will- 
power by  making  the  goal  too  easily  attainable,  affords 
inadequate  relief,  diminishes  potency  and,  by  ignoring  too 
many  psychological  sources  of  excitement,  may  cause 
physical  injury.  The  neurasthenic  turns  away  from  so- 
ciety, from  reality  and,  if  a  m-an,  from  woman,  for  he  can- 
not tolerate  feminine  imperfection.  (As  Wittels  points 
out,  the  onanist  visualizes  in  his  fancies  only  perfect 
women.)  Thus  he  becomes  anti-social  and  betrays  the 
result  of  his  vain  strife  against  passion  in  many  ways,  lack 
of  will  power,  doubts  about  the  possibility  of  achieve- 
ment and  self-reproaches. 

White  sees  in  the  useless,  unsatisfying  life  of  the  Idle 
rich  woman  one  of  the  most  potent  causes  of  neurasthenia. 
Having  no  outer  interests,  she  becomes  introverted  and 
complains  of  a  hundred  little  nothings.  "  Exertion  to  her 
is  only  exertion  and  serves  no  special  ends,  fits  in  nowhere 
as  a  link  in  a  well  connected,  coherent  chain  of  events. 
She  becomes  introverted  at  the  auto-erotic  level." 

Anxiety  neurosis  is  characterised  by  general  irritability, 
exaggerated  visual  and  auditive  sensations  which  are 
often  the  cause  of  sleeplessness,  anxious  expectation  of 
accidents,  death,  insanity,  accompanied  in  certain  cases 
by  a  disturbance  of  one  or  more  bodily  functions,  respira- 
tion, circulation,  glandular  functions,  etc.  A  prominent 
place  must  be  given  among  the  symptoms  of  anxiety  neu- 
rosis to  a  form  of  dizziness  which  never  leads  to  complete 
loss  of  equUibrium. 


1 68  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Freud  considers  the  symptoms  of  anxiety  neurosis  as 
substitutes  for  the  specific  action  which  should  follow 
sexual  excitement  and  which  is  accompanied  by  accelera- 
tion of  the  respiration,  palpitation,  sweating  and  conges- 
tion. 

Anxiety  neurosis  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  caused 
by  overwork.  But,  Freud  says,  the  physicians  who  ex- 
plain to  a  busy  man  that  he  has  overworked  himself,  or 
to  an  active  woman  that  her  household  duties  have  been 
too  burdensome,  should  tell  their  patients  that  they  are 
sick,  not  because  they  have  sought  to  discharge  duties 
which  for  a  civilized  brain  are  comparatively  easy,  but 
because  they  have  neglected,  if  not  stifled,  their  sexual  life 
while  attending  to  their  duties. 

Men  who  resort  to  unsatisfying  forms  of  sexual  con- 
gress, women  left  unsatisfied  by  impotence  or  ejaculatio 
praecox  in  their  husbands,  are  often  found  to  be  suffering 
from  anxiety  neuroses. 

The  various  psychoneuroses  used  to  be  considered  as 
symptoms  of  a  more  general  disturbance  called  psychas- 
thenia.  Under  that  name  Janet  includes  obsessions,  in- 
sanity of  doubt,  tics,  agitations,  phobias,  delirium  of  con- 
tact, anguish,  neurasthenia  and  certain  feelings  of  strange- 
ness and  depersonalisation  known  as  the  disease  of  Kris- 
haber. 

The  main  symptom  of  this  psychoneurosis  was  a  lower- 
ing of  the  psychological  tension  illustrated  by  White  as 
follows :  "  If  we  can  think  of  our  mental  force  in  mechani- 
cal terms,  and  conceive  it  as  flowing  along  the  fiber  tracts 
like  steam  in  a  pipe,  then  we  may  believe  that  this  force 
has  to  be  maintained  at  a  certain  tension  in  order  that 
the  perceptions  from  the  outside  world  may  be  appreciated 


THE    NEUROSES,    EPILEPSIES    AND    PSYCHOSES      1 69 

at  their  true  value.  .  .  .  This  lowering  of  the  psycho- 
logical tension,  this  feeling  of  incompleteness  and  de- 
ficiency in  the  function  of  the  real,  constitutes  the  funda- 
mental feature  of  this  class  of  phenomena." 

Among  the  emotional  obsessions  included  in  Janet's 
psychasthenia  we  find  phobias,  or  fears;  agoraphobia,  fear 
of  open  spaces;  claustrophobia,  fear  of  closed  spaces; 
astrapaphobia,  fear  of  thunder  and  lightning;  aerophobia, 
fear  of  being  in  high  places;  morbid  desires  for  drink  or 
drugs;  volitional  obsessions;  kleptomania,  impulse  to 
steal;  pyromania,  impulse  to  set  fire  to  things;  arithmo- 
mania,  impulse  to  count  everything;  onomatomania,  im- 
pulse to  repeat  one  word,  etc. 

Psychoanalysts  do  not  consider  all  these  symptoms  as 
components  of  one  single  disturbance  and  have  divided 
up  psychasthenia  into  hysteria,  anxiety  hysteria,  and  com- 
pulsion neurosis. 

Hysteria,  according  to  Freud,  is  due  to  an  emotional 
conflict  between  the  usual  urge  and  the  sexual  repression, 
and  its  symptoms  have  the  value  of  a  compromise  be- 
tween both  psychic  streams.  Here  we  notice  an  apparent 
similarity  between  Freud's  view  and  that  of  the  average 
physician  who  considers  that  some  recent  occurrence  pre- 
cipitated the  hysterical  attack.  The  so-called  recent  ex- 
perience is  simply  one  of  the  obvious  phases  of  an  older 
conflict  and  observations,  show  that  a  long  interval  may 
intervene  between  the  "  crisis  "  and  the  establishment  of 
the  first  symptom. 

A  process  called  "  conversion  "  takes  place,  whereby 
a  sum  of  emotion  is  transformed  into  a  physical  dis- 
turbance of  some  sort.  Once  medicine  applied  itself  to 
the  treatment  of  the  physical  symptom.     Psychoanalysis 


lyo  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

seeks  to  remove  the  mental  symptom  that  created  it.  At 
the  same  time  the  physical  aspect  must  not  be  neglected, 
for,  as  Freud  states  emphatically,  every  hysterical  symp- 
tom not  only  has  a  psychic  origin  but  is  conditioned  by  a 
certain  physical  predisposition. 

The  hysterical  symptom  will  follow  the  line  of  least 
resistance  and  express  itself  preferably  through  some  or- 
gan which  has  already  been  weakened:  an  acute  catarrh 
may  pave  the  way  for  an  hysterical  cough;  acute  rhinitis 
facilitated  in  one  case  the  establishment  of  an  hysterical 
affected  obsession. 

An  hysterical  symptom  once  established  may  be  re- 
tained to  give  expression  to  diverse  urges.  A  symptom 
may  be  retained  to  gain  affection,  indulgence  or  some 
other  advantage;  it  may  help  the  patient  in  satisfying 
some  desire  for  revenge;  there  are  also  cases  when  purely 
imaginary  motives  will  be  found  at  work;  self-punishment, 
repentance,  etc. 

The  hysterical  attack  should  be  interpreted  like  a 
dream.  Like  a  dream  it  is  a  phantasy  translated  into  a 
pantomime,  but  distorted  like  dream-pictures  by  the  cen- 
sor and  made  to  a  certain  extent  unrecognizable.  It  is 
distorted  through  condensation  of,  for  instance,  a  recent 
wish  and  an  infantile  phantasy,  by  multiple  identification 
when  the  hysteric  carries  out  the  activities  of  both  per- 
sons appearing  in  the  phantasy,  and  by  the  antagonistic 
representation  by  the  opposite  which  Vv^ould  cause  the 
arms  to  be  thrown  far  back  if  a  sexual  attack  was  the 
subject  of  the  hysterical  fancy.  Also  the  time  sequence 
in  the  phantasy  may  be  inverted,  as  it  is  often  in  dreams, 
the  end  of  an  action  preceding  its  beginning. 

Anxiety  hysteria  is  often  found  in  connection  with  hys- 


THE    NEUROSES,    EPILEPSIES    AND    PSYCHOSES       I7I 

teria  proper.  In  this  case  the  anxiety  arises,  not  only 
from  physical  sources,  but  from  a  part  of  the  ungratified 
desire  which  embraces  a  number  of  complexes.  As  the 
mind  norvially  reacts  to  danger  through  anxiety,  we  might 
say  that  in  this  case  the  mind  was  defending  itself  against 
internal  danger.  The  psychic  mechanism  is  the  same  as 
in  hysteria  except  that  it  does  not  lead  to  conversion  into 
physical  symptoms.  Anxiety  hysteria  always  tends  to 
develop  a  phobia.  The  most  frequent  of  hysterical 
phobias  is  agoraphobia,  which  prevents  the  patient  from 
walking  securely  across  an  empty  space,  although  he  can 
do  so  when  accompanied  by  certain  persons.  Another 
anxiety-hysterical  disturbance  is  erythrophobia  or  fear  of 
red,  at  the  bottom  of  which  lies  self-reproach  or  shame  of 
some  sort,  feelings  of  being  slighted,  or  anger.  When 
this  fear  of  red  interferes  with  life  activities,  preventing 
one,  for  instance,  from  mingling  with  other  people,  it 
becomes  a  phobia.  Anxiety  dreams  are  a  frequent  occur- 
rence in  anxiety  hysteria.  The  dream  picture  represents 
the  patient,  usually  a  woman,  pursued  by  some  large 
beast,  bull  or  stallion,  or  by  armed  burglars. 

Hysteria  Is  rather  a  disturbance  of  the  female  sex,  ob- 
session neurosis  of  the  male  sex. 

The  obsession  neurosis  Is  characterised  by  a  constant 
ambivalence  which  is  well  illustrated  by  an  example  given 
by  Freud:  A  young  man  stubbed  his  toe  against  a  stone 
lying  in  the  roadway.  He  became  obsessed  by  the  idea 
that,  as  his  fiancee  was  going  away  that  day,  the  cab  in 
which  she  would  be  driven  to  the  station  might  be  upset 
by  this  stone.  He  had  to  pick  it  up  and  carry  It  to  the 
side  of  the  roadway.  After  which  he  felt  very  foolish 
and  returned  the  stone  to  its  position  In  the  middle  of  the 


172  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

road.  According  to  Frink,  the  first  action  meant:  "I 
hope  no  injury  befalls  my  beloved;"  the  second  does  not 
mean,  as  the  patient  probably  believed:  "  I  must  not  be 
so  foolishly  anxious  about  her,"  but  rather,  "  I  hope  some- 
thing does  happen  to  her." 

Some  reproach  for  acts  done  in  childhood  and  perhaps 
severely  repressed,  may  change  itself  into  shame  (if  an- 
other becomes  aware  of  it)  into  hypochondriacal  anxiety 
(because  of  the  injurious  physical  consequences  of  the 
acts)  into  social  anxiety  (fear  of  punishment)  into  re- 
ligious anxiety,  Into  fear  of  being  tempted,  distrust  of 
one's  power  of  resistance,  etc.  This  leads  to  obsessive 
thinking,  obsessive  testing  and  doubting  mania. 

The  predilection  of  the  patient  for  uncertainty  and 
doubt  causes  him  frequently  to  fasten  his  thoughts  on 
subjects  where  uncertainty  Is  general  and  where  knowl- 
edge or  judgment  are  naturally  exposed  to  doubt,  the 
duration  of  life,  life  after  death,  etc. 

Superstitions  of  all  kinds  are  naturally  observable  In 
compulsion  neurosis.  No  superstition  carries  any  real 
conviction  with  the  neurotic  but  It  helps  him  to  strengthen 
his  doubts. 

Obsessive  numbers  are  constantly  met  with  in  compul- 
sion neurosis.  Seven  appears  most  frequently.  Dr.  Mc- 
Kendree  cited  the  case  of  a  patient  who  had  to  do  every- 
thing seven  times,  getting  out  of  bed  and  Into  bed  again 
seven  times  before  he  could  arise  In  the  morning,  pouring 
seven  small  quantities  of  milk  into  his  coffee,  lifting  his 
spoon  or  fork  seven  times  before  he  could  convey  food  to 
his  mouth.  In  the  hallucination  known  as  "  Revelation  " 
we  find  seven  candlesticks,  a  book  with  seven  seals,  seven 
stars,  seven  angels  with  seven  horns,  a  dragon  with  seven 


THE   NEUROSES,    EPILEPSIES    AND    PSYCHOSES       1 73 

heads,  seven  vials  and  seven  plagues,  and  the  document 
is  addressed  by  John  to  the  seven  churches  of  Asia. 

In  ordinary  life  seven  and  its  multiples  are  of  great 
importance.  We  speak  of  the  seven  Seas,  the  week  has 
seven  days,  a  moon  four  times  seven  days,  people  reach 
their  majority  at  three  times  seven  years,  Salome  wore 
seven  veils,  etc. 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  obsession  connected  in  cer- 
tain minds  with  the  figures  three  and  thirteen,  with  Fri- 
day, etc. 

The  curiosity  impulse  is  very  marked  in  compulsion 
neurotics  who  are  generally  above  the  average  In  men- 
tality. 

One  of  the  thoughts  the  compulsion  neurotic  is  often  oc- 
cupied with  is  the  possibility  of  the  death  of  others.  In 
every  conflict  he  waits  for  the  death  of  someone  Important 
or  dear  to  him,  a  rival  or  one  of  the  love-objects  between 
whom  his  inclination  wavers.  His  obsession  Is  based 
upon  a  superstitious  belief  in  the  omnipotence  of  his  evil 
wishes.  /- 

A  story  told  by  Dr.  Frink  Illustrates  the  morbid  dis- 
placement and  the  wrong  connection  between  cause  and 
effect  which  Is  observed  In  compulsion  neurosis.  A  prosti- 
tute suffering  from  syphilis  consulted  him  In  reference  to 
her  "  cigarette  habit  "  which,  she  said,  was  killing  her. 
On  close  examination  It  turned  out  that  she  never  smoked 
more  than  seven  or  eight  cigarettes  a  day.  Unable  to 
repress  the  consciousness  of  the  fact  that  she  was  a  prosti- 
tute and  a  sufferer  from  venereal  disease,  she  denied  the 
Importance  of  that  fact  and  transferred  the  worry  con- 
nected with  it  to  an  insignificant  factor,  such  as  moderate 
cigarette-smoking.     By  making  a  scape-goat  of  her  cigar- 


174  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

ette,  Frink  says,  she  dodged  the  problem  of  so  reform- 
ing the  rest  of  her  life  that  there  would  be  no  cause  for 
the  development  of  guilty  effects. 

Compulsion  neurotics  often  abandon  this  sadistic  im- 
pulse and  turn  to  penance  and  reassuring  measures  v/hich 
have  the  same  compulsory  character,  but  by  their  oppres- 
sive character  for  the  neurotics'  environment  assure  them 
many  advantages  over  this  environment.  We  find  among 
them  anti-vivisectionists,  vegetarians,  members  of  the 
S.  P.  C.  A.,  sectarians,  intolerant  persons,  who  may  not  be 
able  to  stand  the  sight  of  a  bird  bleeding  but  are  in  high 
glee  when  their  opponents  are  severely  punished. 

Shell  shock  cases  include  most  of  the  psycho-neuroses 
and  seem  to  be  a  compensation  for  the  repressed  self- 
protection  urge.  Hysterical  deafness  or  blindness  pro- 
tect the  man  from  frightening  sounds  and  sights;  mono- 
plegiias,  aphasias,  abnormal  gait,  etc.,  remove  him  from 
the  danger  zone,  regressions  to  infantile  levels  (interest 
in  toys)  remove  him  from  the  ranks  of  the  adults  and 
vouchsafe  him  the  safety  of  non-combatant. 

"  Shell  shock,"  Bram  writes,  "  is  a  misnomer  and  a 
term  misleading  in  its  implications.  .  .  .  The  fact  that  in 
many  of  these  cases  goitre  and  exophthalmos  develop  soon 
after  the  inception  of  the  affection  diagnosed  as  shell 
shock  has  cleared  the  path  for  a  more  thorough  investiga- 
tion of  the  etiology,  physiology,  and  symptomatology  of 
this  condition,  as  a  result  of  which  there  is  a  growing  con- 
clusion that  most  cases  of  shell  shock  present  symptoms 
in  common  with  exophthalmic  goitre,  and  in  all  prob- 
ability the  vast  majority  of  these  patients  are  subjects 
of  either  an  aberrant  or  a  true  form  of  Graves's  disease. 

*'  Goitre,   associated  with  cardiac  and  nervous  mani- 


THE   NEUROSES,    EPILEPSIES   AND    PSYCHOSES       I75 

festatlons,  has  been  a  problem  in  armies  of  the  past. 
.  .  .  Graves's  disease  is  a  chronic  condition  of  '  fright, 
fight,  and  flight,'  as  evidenced  by  the  typical  picture  of 
perpetual  terror  in  the  well  developed  case  (bulging  eyes, 
anxious  expression,  and  trembling  of  the  body)." 

Epilepsy  is  a  very  vague  term  which  does  not  designate 
any  well-defined  disease,  but  includes,  as  White  says,  a 
series  of  end  results,  conditioned  by  a  multiplicity  of 
pathological  conditions  of  the  brain.  White  suggests 
"  the  epilepsies  "  as  being  a  better  term  than  epilepsy. 

Certain  authors  consider  epilepsy  as  a  neurosis,  some  as 
a  psychosis.  In  certain  cases  it  may  be  very  like  hysteria 
and  in  others  like  certain  psychoses.  It  might,  therefore, 
be  listed  between  neuroses  and  psychoses. 

Ferencz'i  says  of  epilepsy:  "  Although  in  epilepsy  the 
physiological  is  difficult  to  separate  from  the  psychologi- 
cal, I  may  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  epileptics  are 
known  to  be  uncommonly  sensitive  beings,  behind  whose 
submlsslveness  frightful  rage  and  domineerlngness  can 
appear  on  the  least  occasion.  This  characteristic  has 
been,  up  to  the  present,  Interpreted  as  a  secondary  de-  ■ 
generation  due  to  repeated  attacks.  The  epileptic  at- 
tacks might  be  considered  on  the  other  hand  as  regres- 
sion to  the  infantile  period  of  wish  fulfilment  by  means 
of  uncoordinated  movements.  Epileptics  would  then  be 
persons  with  whom  the  disagreeable  affects  get  heaped 
up  and  are  periodically  abreacted  in  paroxysms.  Irra- 
tional stamping  of  the  foot,  clenching  of  fists  and  grind- 
ing of  teeth,  seen  in  outbursts  of  anger,  may  be  a  milder 
form  of  the  same  regression  in  otherwise  healthy  per- 


sons." 


We  are  reminded  of  Dostoyevsky,  who  at  the  age  of 


176  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

17  wrote  to  his  brother  Michel,  "  There  is  no  way  out 
of  my  difficulties.  I  have  a  plan.  I  am  going  to  be- 
come insane."  And  he  became  an  epileptic.  A  descrip- 
tion of  his  "  fits  "  shows  abundantly  that  the  ecstatic  feel- 
ings he  experienced  at  such  times  were  indeed  a  valuable 
compensation  for  whatever  misery  he  may  have  otherwise 
suffered. 

Adler  has  expressed  in  a  very  clear  way  the  difference 
between  neuroses  and  psychoses.  "  Longing  for  an  un- 
attainable ideal  is  at  the  bottom  of  both.  Defeat  or 
fear  of  defeat  causes  the  weaker  individual  to  seek  a  sub- 
stitute for  his  real  goal.  Af  this  point  begins  the  pro- 
cess of  psychic  transformation  designated  as  a  neurosis. 
In  the  neurosis,  the  pursuit  of  the  fictitious  goal  does  not 
lead  to  an  open  conflict  with  reality,  the  neurotic  simply 
considering  reality  as  a  very  disturbing  element,  as  he 
does  in  neurasthenia,  hypochondria,  anxiety,  compulsion 
neurosis  and  hysteria.  In  the  psychosis,  the  guiding  mas- 
culine fiction  appears  disguised  in  pictures  and  symbols 
of  Infantile  origin.  The  patient  no  longer  acts  as  though 
he  wished  to  be  masculine,  to  be  above,  but  as  though  he 
had  already  attained  those  ends." 

In  other  words  the  neurotic  Is  grieved  by  not  being  all- 
powerful,  by  not  being  gratified,  by  not  being  Caesar  or 
Napoleon,  the  psychotic  is  Caesar  or  Napoleon  and  tries 
to  force  his  environment  to  share  his  belief. 

Freud  has  brought  out  that  the  psychoses,  hallucina- 
tions and  delusions  can  be  divided  into  overpowering 
psychoses  and  defense  psychoses.  The  former  are  those 
in  which  the  unconscious  has  absolutely  overpowered  the 
conscious:  Thus  a  girl,  in  vain  awaiting  her  lover,  sud- 
denly Imagined  she  was  with  him  and  lived  In  that  way 


THE    NEUROSES,    EPILEPSIES    AND    PSYCHOSES       1 77 

for  two  months.  The  defense  psychoses  are  close  to 
hysteria,  but  there  is  a  great  difference :  while  in  hysteria 
there  is  a  great  amount  of  free  floating  libido  which  at- 
taches itself  to  exterior  objects,  in  defense  psychoses,  it 
seems  to  fasten  itself  to  the  ego  and  leads  to  delusions 
of  greatness.  Jung's  painstaking  analysis  of  every  symp- 
tom manifested  by  schizophrenic  dements  shows  that 
there  again  we  find  the  same  conflict  between  a  repressed 
desire  and  the  repression.  The  apparently  absurd  symp- 
toms of  schizophrenia  prove  to  be  symbolic  figures  of 
intelligible  and  important  trains  of  thought  and  impulse. 

We  shall  describe  briefly,  in  White's  words,  the  symp- 
toms of  Paranoia,  Manic-depressive  psychosis  and  Schizo- 
prenia. 

The  word  paranoia  indicates,  etymologically,  thinking 
which  is  "  beside  itself."  Certain  authors  use  the  word 
to  designate  acute,  confused  thinking,  others  to  designate 
a  group  of  disturbances  characterised  by  chronic  delu- 
sions. Paranoia  is  closely  related  to  ego  complexes. 
Ideas  of  self-importance  dominate.  At  first  the  subject 
may  withdraw  into  himself,  be  touchy.  Imagine  that  other 
people  treat  him  in  a  peculiar  way,  then  come  delusions 
of  persecution  and,  finally,  either  voices  tell  him  he  is  a 
great  personage,  or  from  the  number  of  his  persecutors, 
he  concludes  that  he  is  indeed  extremely  important,  a 
great  inventor,  a  powerful  personage,  sometimes  that  he 
is  loved  by  important  women.  Freud  thinks  that  in 
paranoia  there  has  been  a  fixation  in  some  portion  of  the 
homosexual  period  of  development,  the  stage  of  narcism 
and  a  regression  of  the  repressed  homosexuality  to  nar- 
cism. 

Manic-depressive  psychosis  is  characterised  by  more 


178  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

or  less  durable  periods  of  agitation,  followed  by  other 
periods  of  depression  and  melancholia.  The  agitation  is 
a  defense-mechanism.  The  patient  covers  every  avenue 
of  approach  that  might  touch  his  sore  spot,  his  complex, 
and  rushes  wildly  from  one  source  of  danger  to  the  other, 
meanwhile  keeping  up  a  stream  of  diverting  activities. 

His  failure  to  deal  with  the  difficulty  is  expressed  by  the 
depression  which  follows  the  agitated  period.  The  de- 
fenses have  broken  down  and  the  patient  is  overwhelmed 
by  a  sense  of  his  moral  turpitude.  Sexual  curiosity  cre- 
ates a  sense  of  sin  which  tortures  the  patient.  At  other 
times  he  may  have  a  delusion  of  great  power,  wealth  and 
happiness. 

Schizophrenia  is  called  also  dementia  praecox  because 
it  is  often  a  disease  of  puberty  and  adolescence. 
Worry  about  sexual  problems  which  appear  too  difficult 
of  solution,  worry  about  life  problems,  lack  of  self-suf- 
ficiency, lead  the  individual  to  abandon  all  solutions  or  to 
seek  an  abnormal  one.  There  is  frequently  a  tendency 
to  a  splitting  of  the  mind. 

Two  continuous  streams  of  thought  flow  side  by  side, 
unable  to  come  to  a  compromise.  Negatism  results, 
which  is  one  way  of  solving  the  patient's  conflicts  by 
not  acting  or  by  performing  opposite  things  at  the  same 
time,  laughing  when  pain  should  be  expressed,  weep- 
ing when  joy  would  be  expected.  Schizophrenia  is  the 
result  of  defective  adjustment  of  some  kind.  A  young 
woman,  having  made  a  failure  of  her  life  as  a  wife  and 
mother,  may  settle  into  a  stage  of  regression  at  the  mental 
level  of  a  little  girl  of  twelve,  henceforth  relieved  of  all 
responsibilities;  a  homosexual  of  the  passive  type  may 
pretend  to  be  a  prize  fighter  and  very  virile,  etc. 


THE   NEUROSES,    EPILEPSIES    AND    PSYCHOSES       1 79 

We  shall  not  devote  any  space  to  the  many  psychoses 
due  to  syphilis,  senile  and  arteriosclerotic  deterioration, 
Infection  and  exhaustion,  injuries  to  the  brain,  diabetes, 
thyroidism,  etc.,  and  shall  refer  the  readers  to  White's 
"  Outlines  of  Psychiatry." 

Alcoholism  is  worthy  of  mention  both  as  a  cause  and 
as  a  symptom  of  psychosis.  According  to  statistics  com- 
piled In  1903,  twelve  per  cent  of  the  Insane  confined  In 
institutions  in  the  United  States  were  directly  or  Indirectly 
victims  of  alcoholic  poisoning.  White  divides  drinkers 
into  several  types:  Those  for  whom  drinking  Is  the  ex- 
pression, not  the  cause » of  a  psychosis;  those  who  drink 
to  drown  their  troubles  and  escape  reality  by  dulling  their 
sensorium;  weak  Individuals  who  manifest  an  exaggerated 
reaction  to  small  doses  or  are  weakened  by  an  operation, 
arteriosclerosis  or  senility. 

Alcohol,  White  writes,  is  like  fever,  a  measure  of  ce- 
rebral resistance,  the  unstable,  predisposed  Individual  be- 
coming Intoxicated  more  readily  than  the  average.  In- 
ebriety is  a  neurose,  one  escape  from  reality,  one  form  of 
inefficiency,  dependent,  Adler  believes,  upon  organic  in- 
feriority. Alcohol,  White  writes,  has  been  called  a  stimu- 
lant because  the  individual  who  Is  unable  to  meet  reality 
tries  to  give  the  best  possible  reason  for  drinking,  namely 
that  It  would  help  him  to  meet  reality.  The  result  of 
that  neurose  is  a  variety  of  psychoses  which,  when  ana- 
lyzed, lead  back  to  the  IndivIduaFs  Inability  to  face  his 
life  problems. 

The  same  can  be  said  of  psychoses  due  to  the  use  of 
opium  and  cocaine.  The  drug  addict  also  tries  to  escape 
from  reality  and  his  habit  may  in  time  create  a  severe 
psychose. 


l8o  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Clarke  sees  a  certain  connection  between  alcoholism  and 
homosexuality: 

"  Can  it  be  merely  chance  that  men  so  much  enjoy  being 
among  themselves  and  drinking  together,  sometimes 
roughly,  sometimes  in  more  refined  manner?  There 
seems  to  be  an  invisible  force  that  drags  a  man  from  his 
comfortable  home  and  loyal  family  to  the  public  house  — 
it  even  drags  him  out  of  bed  sometimes.  What  lies,  what 
fabrications,  what  machinations  must  he  employ  to  gain 
this  end.  The  healthy  man  has  a  distaste  for  tenderness 
between  man  and  man,  but  alcohol  dissolves  this  repug- 
nance. Men  drink,  fall  on  one  another's  necks,  feel 
themselves  united  by  an  inner  bond  and  weep.  In  a 
word,  their  behavior  is  womanish.  Every  drinking  bout 
has  a  touch  of  homosexuality.  The  homosexual  com- 
ponent which  we  are  taught  to  repress  comes  through 
clearly  under  alcohol.  It  is  known  that  delirium  is  ac- 
companied by  fear  and  fear  hallucinations.  The  patient 
is  frightened  by  men  who  make  all  sorts  of  attacks  upon 
him.  This  can  only  be  a  projection.  Why  does  the  alco- 
holic deliriant  always  see  certain  animals  which  are  well 
known  as  sex  symbols  in  general,  and  especially,  when 
seen  by  man,  as  showing  homosexual  designs?  The 
lizards,  snakes,  and  mice  that  surround  him  are  clear 
enough." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PERVERSIONS 

"  The  repressed,  introverted  types  of  personalities," 
Kempf  writes,  "have  a  common  characteristic;  namely, 
through  the  consistent  pressure  often  unwittingly  exerted 
upon  them  by  their  intimate  associates  (family,  teachers,, 
masters,  mates)  they  have  become  influenced  to  repress 
their  affective  cravings  from  seeking  those  healthful,  con- 
structive outlets  which  constitute  the  behavior  of  normal 
people.  Their  sexual  cravings  have  thereby  become 
forced  to  seek  gratification  through  means  which  are  per- 
verse. .  .  .  Such  vicious,  alternative  circles,  destroying 
the  confidence  of  the  individual's  associates,  lead  to  per- 
nicious, affective  isolation,  which,  sooner  or  later,  makes 
the  individual  notoriously  eccentric  .  .  .  and  his  sexual 
cravings,  overcoming  the  depressed  wishes  for  social  es- 
teem, become  uncontrollable.  So  soon  as  the  individual 
loses  hope,  becomes  convinced  that  his  goal  or  ideal  is 
utterly  impossible,  the  sexual  cravings  revert  back  to  a 
more  simple,  preadolescent  or  infantile,  socially  more  per- 
verse level."  Such  is,  generally  speaking,  the  genesis  of 
every  perversion. 

We  shall  mention  first  homosexualism,  or  love  for  per- 
sons of  the  same  sex. 

We  do  not  include  among  perverse  homosexuals  all  the 
individuals,  male  or  female,  who  seem  to  be  equally  at- 

i8i 


l82  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

tracted  by  both  sexes,  men  who  can  be  aroused  by  men  as 
well  as  by  women,  women  who  can  be  aroused  by  women 
as  well  as  by  men. 

Those  abnormal  persons  should  be  known  as  bisexuals. 
They  may  be  representatives  of  a  third  sex  or  inter- 
mediate sex,  and  in  a  way  correspond  mentally  to  the 
physically  abnormal  human  beings  called  hermaphrodites, 
who  possess  the  genitals  of  both  sexes. 

Many  animals,  especially  the  primates,  are  bisexually 
disposed,  and  while  that  tendency  may  correspond  to  some 
faulty  differentiation  at  some  period  of  animal  life,  it 
seems  to  be  congenital  and  not  acquired. 

Certain  past  civilizations  admitted  bisexualism. 
Among  the  Greeks,  there  were  men  of  the  highest  intel- 
lectual achievements,  Plato,  Socrates,  Alcibiades  and 
others,  who  were  addicted  to  that  form  of  gratification, 
as  can  be  proved  by  the  unexpurgated  editions  of  Plato  s 
dialogues  and  the  school  regulations  of  the  classic  Greek 
age. 

According  to  the  scanty  information  we  have  on  the 
subject,  it  was  not  the  masculine  appearance  of  a  boy 
which  made  him  attractive  to  more  mature  men,  but  on 
the  contrary  his  feminine  traits  and  features,  his  mental 
make-up,  his  shyness,  his  need  for  instruction  and  help. 
As  soon  as  boys  became  men  they  ceased  to  be  the  objects 
of  desire. 

Some  details  of  the  Greek  family  life  might  explain  In 
part  that  form  of  perversion.  The  fact  that  women  were 
confined  In  Oriental  fashion  in  the  gyneceum  with  their 
young  children,  placed  those  children  outside  of  man's  In- 
fluence for  many  years.  At  the  same  time,  that  condition, 
when  met  with  in  modern  life,  gives  rise  to  one  distinct 


PERVERSIONS  1 83 

form  of  homosexualism  rather  than  to  bisexuallsm. 
From  all  accounts,  men  like  Plato  were  perfectly  manly 
and  not  as  one-sided  sexually  as  the  average  homosexual. 
This  is  a  problem  which  will  have  to  be  solved  through  a 
collaboration  of  analysts  and  hellenists. 

Painful  as  the  conflict  may  be  in  the  child's  unconscious 
at  the  time  when  the  great  choice  of  puberty  has  to  be 
made,  the  presence  of  both  parents  in  the  home  seems  to 
be  an  essential  condition  of  sexual  normality  in  the  child. 
In  fact  it  would  seem  as  though  the  very  conflict  involved 
therein  were  necessary  to  liberate  many  dormant  possibili- 
ties in  the  child's  make-up.  The  child  suffers  when  free- 
ing himself  physically  and  mentally  from  his  parents' 
bondage,  but  that  suffering  is  amply  compensated  for  in 
later  life  by  the  richer  emotional  life  the  adult  enjoys. 

Children  abandoned  at  an  early  age,  and  brought  up 
in  institutions,  show,  barring  exceptions,  an  appalling 
mental,  intellectual  and  sentimental  poverty.  Many  of 
their  natural  abilities  are  frozen  up  by  the  cold  indiffer- 
ence of  their  environment.  The  child's  ego  needs  for  a 
few  years  the  uncritical  adoration  of  a  worshipping 
mother,  lacking  which  the  child  will  not  reach  a  health- 
fully rounded  maturity. 

Great  care  must  be  exercised,  however,  to  wean  the 
child  mentally  as  well  as  physically,  or  the  normal  differ- 
entiation of  puberty  will  not  be  complete. 

Faulty  differentiation  will  produce  either  passive  or 
active  homosexuals.  Ferenczi  has  suggested  the  words 
object-homosexual  and  subject-homosexual  to  designate 
the  two  types. 

The  passive  type  among  men  constitutes  the  real  invert. 
Such  a  man  in  his  relations  with  other  men  thinks  of  him- 


1 84  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

self  as  being  a  woman  and  this  attitude  holds  not  only  in 
sexual  intercourse  but  in  all  situations  in  life. 

The  active  (male)  type,  on  the  contrary,  feels  himself 
a  man  in  every  respect  and  may  be  extremely  energetic 
and  virile  in  appearance. 

The  passive  homosexual  is  attracted  by  more  mature, 
powerful  men  and  can  have  friendly  relations  with  women, 
just  as  a  woman  would. 

The  active  homosexual,  on  the  contrary.  Is  generally 
attracted  by  young,  feminine-looking  men,  and  has  only 
scorn,  if  not  hatred,  for  all  women. 

The  passive  homosexual  lacks  the  sexual  overestima- 
tion  which,  according  to  Freud,  is  the  characteristic  of 
masculine  love;  he  is  only  mildly  passionate  and  enjoys 
adulation  and  praise  of  his  physical  appearance. 

The  active  homosexual  overestimates  his  love  object, 
and  changes  the  object  of  his  affections  frequently,  being 
constantly  troubled  by  the  unsuccessful  pursuit  of  some 
ideal. 

Both  types,  especially  when  they  happen  to  be  refined 
and  cultivated  and,  hence,  subject  to  strong  inhibitions, 
are  tortured  by  their  conscience.  Unable  to  realize  the 
involuntary  nature  of  their  perversion,  they  are  prone  to 
inflict  upon  themselves  all  forms  of  self-reproach  and  not 
infrequently  mutilate  themselves. 

The  active  type  is  led  more  surely  to  a  neurose,  as  his 
cravings  are  stronger  and  never  properly  gratified. 

Let  us  now  study  the  genesis  of  those  two  types,  un- 
conscious victims  of  their  childhood  environment. 

The  majority  of  passive  homosexuals  come  from  the 
ranks  of  children  who  were  brought  up  by  a  widowed 


PERVERSIONS  1 85 

mother  or  by  a  woman  who  was  abandoned  either  before 
or  soon  after  her  child  was  born. 

The  training  a  child   receives  at  the  hands  of  a  lone 
woman   is   purely   feminine.     No   father  being  present 
there  is  not  even  a  spark  of  that  jealousy  which  might 
awaken  sexual  feelings  of  the  normal  type  in  the  child. 
The  boy,  alone  with  his  mother,  identifies  himself  with 
her,  for  she  is  the  only  adult  he  can  imitate.     His  attitude 
to  men  and  women  is  purely  feminine.     All  his  impres- 
sions of  men  are  his  mother's  impressions.     He  is  trained 
to  appreciate  in  men  whatever  might  attract  a  female,  be 
it  mental  or  physical.     Unless  his  mother  is  homosexual, 
he  is  never  led  to  appreciate   feminine  attractions,   the 
voluptuous  qualities  of  a  female  body.     On  the  contrary, 
sexual   competition   will   cause   his   mother   to   disparage 
attractive  women,  and  he  will  copy  her  attitude  in  this 
respect  as  well  as  In  others.     It  is  tragic  to  think  that  the 
only  salvation  for  a  boy  in  this  position  would  be  a  homo- 
sexual mother. 

If  the  widowed  mother  was  deeply  attached  to  her  dead 
husband,  the  situation  is  even  worse.  Not  only  will  the 
child  be  attracted  by  men  in  general,  following  his 
mother's  example,  but  he  will  be  trained  to  revere  and 
worship  the  image  of  his  dead  father,  and  that  reverence 
and  worship  will  never  be  corrected  by  any  sexual  or  ego- 
tistic jealousy,  as  it  would  be  in  the  case  of  a  living  father. 

In  certain  cases  analysis  has  revealed  a  different  origin 
for  passive  homosexualism.  Some  children  are  born  ef- 
feminate, with  a  girlish  face  and  expression,  a  wealth  of 
blond  hair,  etc.,  and  these  characteristics  may  cause  them 
to  be  treated  as  girls.     Some  parents  will  indeed  dress 


I  8  6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

up  such  a  boy  in  a  girl's  clothes,  let  his  long  hair  flow 
down  his  back  and  thus  prevent  his  infantile  narcism 
from  being  gradually  repressed.  Such  a  child  may  iden- 
tify himself  with  his  mother  even  to  the  point  of  wish- 
ing for  her  disappearance  so  that  he  might  have  her 
clothes,  her  jewelry  and  receive  the  tenderness  his  father 
lavishes  on  her,  an  inversion  of  the  oedipus  complex. 
One  can  observe  the  same  results  in  families  when  the 
father  is  inferior  or  insignificant,  and  the  son,  like  his 
mother,  yearns  for  a  strong,  virile,  man.  The  same  situ- 
ation, reversed,  would  produce  the  same  results  in  girls. 

Passive  homosexualism  can  then  be  attributed  to  the 
imitation  by  the  child  of  the  wrong  parent,  that  is,  the 
parent  of  the  opposite  sex,  the  mother  by  a  boy,  the  father 
by  a  girl. 

Such  cases  make  us  suspect  that  most  of  our  mental  and 
intellectual  characteristics,  and,  through  them,  many 
physical  traits,  are  due  not  to  heredity  but  to  the  influences 
to  which  we  were  submitted  in  the  formative  period  of 
our  lives. 

It  is  through  imitation  that  the  child  learns  to  walk, 
to  carry  food  to  its  mouth,  to  speak.  It  is  probably 
through  imitation  that  it  learns  to  think,  to  fear,  to  love, 
or  hate.  To  quote  Kempf:  "A  young  man  carries  his 
hands  like  his  father,  another  walks  like  his  father,  an- 
other holds  his  head  tilted  toward  one  shoulder  like  his 
father;  a  daughter  tries  to  have  a  deformed  finger  like 
her  father's,  another  works  the  muscles  of  her  cheeks,  un- 
consciously imitating  her  father;  internes  in  hospitals  no- 
toriously imitate  their  chiefs  of  the  staff;  students  wear 
their  clothes,  hats,  carry  their  bodies,  facial  expression, 
accent  their  words,  adopt  the  characteristic  phrases,  moral 


PERVERSIONS  1 87 

and  social  attitudes  of  their  teachers  or  of  older,  socially 
potent  students.     Postural  imitation,  in  order  to  develop 
a  personality  like  the  hero's,  is  the  eternal  effort  of  the 
hero-worshipper.      Children    learn    to    spit    like    others, 
laugh  like  their  playmates,  cut  their  fingers,  injure  them- 
selves, tear  and  soil  their  clothing  and  adopt  countless 
artifices  to  be  like  their  associates.     The  influence  of  asso- 
ciates upon  the  personality  is  a  physiological  mechanism 
and  occurs  unconsciously,  or  at  least  begins  unconsciously." 
Active  or  object-homosexuals  are  the  victims  of  a  differ- 
ent process.     They   generally  were   sexually   precocious 
children  with  a  greatly  developed  curiosity  touching  sex- 
ual matters.      In  their  craving  for  knowledge,  left  un- 
satisfied by  old-fashioned  parents,  they  create  a  number 
of  infantile  theories  regarding  sex,  pregnancy  and  birth. 
Their  curiosity  leads  them  to  develop  their  anal  erotism 
and  coprophilia  and  may  cause  them  to  investigate  the 
body  of  their  mother  or  of  little  girl  playmates.     Gen- 
erally punished  with  severity  for  such  indecencies  they 
withdraw  entirely  from  their  mother  and  from  all  women 
and,  through  overcorrection  of  their  original  tendency, 
go  to  the  other  extreme  and  consort  exclusively  with  men, 
with  whom  they  play  the  active  part  of  the  lover. 

At  the  time  of  puberty,  when  the  sexual  instinct  reaches 
its  highest  point,  the  active  homosexual's  desire  may  turn 
again  toward  normal,  heterosexual  satisfaction,  but  the 
slightest  reproval  or  censure  following  that  satisfaction 
may  re-awaken  the  former  fear  of  women  and  throw  him 
back  into  abnormal  paths. 

Active  homosexualism  appears,  then,  in  the  light  of  a 
double  form  of  abnormal  compensation.  The  boy  obeys 
his  father's  warning  against  early  intercourse  with  women 


1 88  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

and  derives  a  certain  masochistic  pleasure  from  that  pri- 
vation, indulging  his  normal  impulses  in  unconscious  phan- 
tasies; on  the  other  hand,  his  abnormal  practices,  which 
in  many  cases  are  shown  to  be  charged  with  sadism,  malice 
and  revenge,  carry  out  the  unconscious  Oedipus  wishes  by 
visiting  degradation  on  a  man,  Ferenczi  mentions  the 
case  of  a  man  who  every  time  he  was  subjected  to  some 
humiliation,  sought  a  male  prostitute.  Thus  are  united, 
in  a  strange  combination,  the  flight  from  women,  their 
symbolic  replacement,  hatred  of  men  and  compensation 
for  that  hatred. 

Active  homosexualism  is  then  both  a  perversion  and  a 
neurosis  negativing  a  perversion. 

Onanism  is  the  lingering  on  an  infantile  and  childish 
level,  or  a  neurotic  regression  to  that  level. 

Onanism  in  early  infancy  and  puberty  seems  to  be  a 
perfectly  normal  development.  In  fact,  as  we  shall  see 
later,  the  absence  of  it  at  those  two  periods  of  man's  life 
probably  indicates  deficient  sexuality,  for  it  is  generally 
followed  by  impotence  in  later  life. 

When  a  child  does  not  gradually  abandon  the  exagger- 
ated egotism  which  characterises  certain  years  of  infancy, 
when  he  is  unable  or  unwilling  (because  unable)  to  adapt 
himself  to  the  social  arrangements  which  dominate  the 
adult's  world,  and  which  compel  us  to  sacrifice  a  certain 
amount  of  our  desires,  to  brook  many  delays  in  their  satis- 
faction, and  to  be  satisfied  with  love-objects  very  inferior 
to  our  ideals,  he  is  likely  to  remain  an  onanist. 

That  form  of  sexual  gratification  is  principally  an  ab- 
normal compensation  for  unsatisfied  ego  cravings.  As 
White  states,  it  Is  an  auto-erotic  effort  at  gaining  omnipo- 


PERVERSIONS  1 89 

tence,  at  being  self-sufficient,  in  the  sense  of  not  having  to 
go  beyond  one's  own  body  for  satisfaction. 

In  certain  cases,  especially  in  timid  individuals,  onanism 
Is  an  unconscious  outcropping  of  the  self-protection  urge, 
which  has  overpowered  and  partly  repressed  the  pleasure 
urge.  In  other  cases  it  is  a  compensation  for  defeat  in 
life.  Many  neurotics  masturbate  as  others  would  drink, 
in  order  to  find  consolation  for  their  failure  In  life.  Jung 
cites  the  case  of  a  woman  who  Indulged  in  badly  concealed 
onanism  after  the  death  of  her  child.  Both  forms  of 
compensation  are  infantile,  for  the  drinker  after  all  re- 
verts symbolically  to  his  mother's  breast,  where  he  se- 
cured a  soothing  beverage  that  Induced  sleep. 

Onanism  may  produce,  besides  neurasthenia,  frigidity 
in  the  woman,  impotence  or  premature  ejaculation  in  the 
man. 

The  inaccessibility  of  many  women  without  a  some- 
times protracted  courtship,  the  inferiority  of  most  women, 
however  attractive  they  may  be,  to  the  Ideal  beauties 
which  people  the  onanist's  fancies.  In  women,  the  fear  of 
consequences,  may  well  cause  impotence  and  frigidity. 
The  delays  attendant  upon  bl-sexual  satisfaction,  the 
physical  disappointment  which  threatens  the  man  who  has 
indulged  in  too  many  onanlstic  fancies,  are  likely  to  cre- 
ate In  man  the  disturbance  known  as  premature  ejacula- 
tion. 

Impotence,  however,  may  be  due  to  other  causes,  most 
of  them  childhood  memories. 

Male  psychosexual  impotence  Is  always  a  single  mani- 
festation of  a  psychoneurose,  and  accords  with  Freud's 
conception  of  psychoneurotic  symptoms.     It  Is  the  syp=>- 


190  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

bolic  expression  of  repressed  memory-traces  of  sexual 
experiences,  of  unconscious  wishes  striving  for  the  repeti- 
tion of  those  experiences  and  of  the  mental  conflicts  thus 
generated.  An  incestuous  desire  for  one's  mother  or 
sister  may  later  cause  impotence  when  the  patient  identi- 
fies his  wife  with  his  mother  or  sister.  The  sexual  inhibi- 
tion is  then  the  work  of  the  self-protection  urge  (censor) 
which  prevents  us  from  performing  acts,  which,  even  in 
their  symbolic  form,  are  incompatible  with  modern  ethical 
customs.  A  child  severely  punished  for  indecent  acts  per- 
formed with  little  girls  may  be  so  affected  by  the  feeling 
of  shame  thus  aroused  that  impotence  may  result. 

Exhibitionism,  which  is  the  form  of  gratification  ex- 
perienced in  displaying  one's  genitals,  does  not,  accord- 
ing to  Adler,  originate  from  a  congenital  sexual  consti- 
tution. "  The  neurosis  which  seeks  to  secure  the  ego-con- 
sciousness is  impelled  to  suppress  the  feeling  of  inferiority, 
to  overcome  it,  because,  in  this  neurosis,  the  lively  desire 
to  be  a  complete  man,  to  be  of  great  account,  finds  expres- 
sion. The  feminine,  exaggerated  modesty  of  such  pa- 
tients is  an  expedient  in  the  opposite  direction  for  the  pur- 
pose of  deceiving  concerning  the  lack  of  masculinity.  On 
the  contrary,  the  absence  of  modesty  points  invariably 
to  disquieting  dreams  or  thoughts  concerning  curtailed 
genital  organs.  The  inclination  to  disarm  the  partner,  to 
feel  constantly  the  assurance  of  superiority  which  regu- 
larly constitutes  the  content  of  exhibitionism,  are  often 
met  with." 

Both  exhibitionists  and  voyeurs  (persons  who  attain 
gratification  by  looking  at  sexual  objects),  may  in  certain 
cases  show  some  organic  weakness.  The  accentuated 
auto-erotic  trait  of  the  enuretic,   for  instance,   and  his 


PERVERSIONS  I9I 

constant  interest  In  his  sexual  life  may  develop  his  curi- 
osity for  the  sexual  organs  of  other  persons. 

Sadism,  that  is,  the  enhancement  of  sexual  pleasure 
by  the  sight  or  infliction  of  pain,  real  or  simulated,  has, 
according  to  White,  a  symbolic  significance. 

As  the  male  is  normally  active  and  aggressive  In  the 
sexual  relation,  sadism  is  found  mostly  among  men  and 
female  active  homosexuals.  It  is  an  attempt  on  the  part 
of  the  male  neurotic  to  affirm  his  masculine  superiority, 
and  on  the  part  of  the  female  neurotic  to  express  her 
masculine  protest. 

Very  often  strong  repression  exerted  by  the  individual 
may  develop  in  him  sadistic  instincts  which  reveal  them- 
selves through  activities  of  a  religious  or  reformist  turn. 
As  White  says  in  his  "  Outlines  of  Psychiatry,"  "  a  person 
who  is  in  serious  danger  from  alcohol  may  become  so 
rabid  on  the  subject,  that  he  cannot  consider  any  angle 
of  the  question  calmly.  His  conduct  is  conditioned  by 
his  complex,  though  he  may  have  no  conscious  idea  that 
such  is  the  case,  but  rather  think  that  he  is  advocating 
a  temperance  platform  in  an  altogether  normal  way, 
without  ulterior  motive." 

The  same  applies  to  many  vice-hunting  societies  whose 
members  suppress  works  of  art  or  books  of  fiction  which 
touch  their  unconscious  complexes.  Passages  which  the 
normal  man  would  simply  call  realistic  arouse  fiercely  in 
them  the  passions  they  have  succeeded  in  repressing  but 
not  in  suppressing,  and  which  are  struggling  for  expres- 
sion. In  self-protection  they  destroy  the  offensive  stimu- 
lus and  their  resentment  for  the  unpleasant  arousing  of 
their  complexes  causes  them  often  to  seek  ruthless  punish- 
ment for  the  perfectly  normal  persons  who  either  pro- 


192  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

duced  the  offending  stimulus  or  have  It  in  their  possession. 

They  derive  a  great  deal  of  compensation  for  the  non- 
satisfaction  of  their  repressed  desires  from  the  standing 
which  the  community  and  the  courts  in  Anglo-Saxon  na- 
tions have  thus  far  granted  them.  Like  other  neurotics 
they  are  generally  honest  and  moral,  but  they  are  un- 
consciously oversexed.  The  ascetics  of  the  Middle  Ages 
who  scourged  and  flagellated  themselves  to  "  kill  "  their 
flesh  were  precisely  those  whom  "  the  devil  "  tempted 
most  sorely.  The  great  anchorites,  St.  Anthony  and  oth- 
ers, were  submitted  to  terrible  temptations,  that  is,  suf- 
fered delusions  of  an  erotic  character,  In  the  course  of 
which  they  witnessed  all  the  possible  sexual  manifesta- 
tions, normal,  abnormal,  homosexual  and  bestial.  Puri- 
tanism, aiming  at  the  destruction  of  woman's  attraction 
may  reveal  a  homosexual  trend. 

Masochism  is  the  enchancement  of  sexual  pleasure  by 
suffering,  self-inflicted  or  inflicted  by  another  person. 
Freudians  have  explained  that  attitude  by  identification 
of  the  child  with  the  mother,  who  during  the  sexual  act,  as 
misunderstood  by  children,  seems  to  suffer  pain  and  at 
the  same  time  feel  gratification  while  being  overpowered. 

Fetichism  is  sexual  gratification  secured  by  seeing  or 
touching  a  special  part  of  the  body  or  piece  of  wearing 
apparel  symbolizing  a  part  of  the  body;  hair  and  ankles 
are  the  parts  of  the  body  around  which  the  greatest 
amount  of  fetichism  centers.  Inanimate  fetishes  such  as 
handkerchiefs,   shoes,   petticoats  are  the  most  common. 

Necrophilia,  or  desire  to  have  sexual  congress  with  a 
dead  body,  is  based  upon  the  most  inordinate  sense  of  in- 
feriority and  unconscious  fear  of  the  sexual  partner. 


PERVERSIONS  I93 

Bestiality  or  sexual  gratification  with  animals  Is  due  to 
the  same  unconscious  reason. 

Freud  has  said  aptly  that  a  neurosis  is  the  negative  of 
a  perversion.  The  neurosis,  as  we  have  seen  in  Chapter 
XV  can  be  traced  to  the  repression  of  certain  strivings. 
The  perversion,  on  the  contrary,  is  due  to  the  compulsive 
development  of  partial  impulses.  This  is  well  illustrated 
by  the  following  case  cited  by  Brill: 

"  Some  years  ago  a  patient  was  referred  to  me  be- 
cause of  serious  difficulties  with  his  eyes.  He  had  been 
treated  for  years  by  many  oculists  who  finally  told  him 
that  he  was  suffering  from  a  nervous  affection.  He  was 
in  constant  fear  of  becoming  blind.  Now  it  would  be 
quite  impossible  to  give  the  analysis  of  this  interesting 
patient  who  has  been  well  for  over  two  years.  His  neu- 
rosis was  the  negative  of  the  perversion.  In  fact  he  was 
constantly  fluctuating  between  his  neurosis  and  his  per- 
version. He  either  spent  his  time  as  a  voyeur,  or  in- 
dulged In  the  most  extravagant  fancies  of  sexual  exhibi- 
tionism, or  he  feared  blindness.  But  the  neurosis  was 
formed  on  the  basis  of  sexual  looking  which  Is  a  part  of 
the  impulse  and  perfectly  normal  within  normal  limits." 


CHAPTER  XVII 

CRIME   AND   PUNISHMENT 

Psychoanalysis  has  not  occupied  Itself  much  with 
crime  or  its  punishment,  nor  have  those  who  deal  with 
criniinals  given  much  attention  to  psychoanalytic  re- 
search. And  yet,  from  the  observations  gathered  by  a 
few  psychiatrists  on  the  mental  condition  of  the  inmates 
of  reformatories,  workhouses,  penitentiaries  and  other 
penal  institutions,  one  easily  derives  the  impression  that 
crime  is  a  symptom  of  mental  disease,  whether  the  indi- 
vidual who  commits  the  crime  is  a  so-called  habitual  crim- 
inal or  one  who  yielded  once  to  some  irresistible  prompt- 
ing. 

At  the  present  day,  no  intelligent  picture  of  the  defen- 
dant's mind  is  ever  presented  to  the  trial  court.  The 
courts  are  not  provided  with  physicians,  nor  is  there  any 
body  of  experts  to  gather,  sift  and  present  scientifically 
the  information  upon  which  the  court's  opinion  should  be 
based.  As  Burdette  Lewis  states,  "  the  detention  prison 
physician  is  usually  overworked,  underpaid  and  poorly 
prepared  to  discharge  all  the  duties  with  which  he  is 
burdened  by  modern  conditions." 

Medical  colleges  are  only  beginning  to  include  in  their 

curriculum  courses  in  psychopathology,  but  no  law  school 

has  ever  thought  of  imparting  to  its  pupils  the  sort  of 

psychological    information   which   would   enable    district 

194 


CRIME   AND   PUNISHMENT  195 

attorneys,  judges  and  counsel  to  treat  defendants  fairly 
and  intelligently. 

The  majority  of  crimes  being  admittedly  crimes  against 
property,  crime  may  be  considered  as  an  abnormal  forrr. 
of  compensation  for  repressed  ego  promptings.  The 
criminal  seeks  power,  and  being,  as  Lewis  says,  "  usu- 
ally deficient  in  imagination,"  tries  to  acquire  by  stealth 
or  violence  what  to  primitive  minds  symbolizes  power: 
money.  His  deficient  imagination  prevents  him  from 
estimating  accurately  the  consequences  of  his  action  and 
foreseeing  the  lasting  ego  repression  likely  to  follow  upon 
a  short-lived  ego  gratification. 

Compared  with  the  number  of  crimes  prompted  by  a 
craving  for  power  the  number  of  sexual  crimes  is  insig- 
nificant. A  strict  Freudian  might  suggest,  of  course,  that 
one  of  the  things  criminals  usually  purchase  with  the 
money  they  acquire  is  sexual  gratification  and  that  not  a 
few  crimes  have  been  committed  by  sex-crazed  men, 
anxious  to  win  the  favor  of  some  woman. 

Whatever  their  crime  may  give  them,  however,  is  at 
best  a  symbol  of  the  power  they  seek.  Most  criminals 
seek  power  because  they  are  inferior  mentally  or  physi- 
cally, or  both,  and  they  cannot  expect  to  achieve  success 
through  plodding  along  in  some  definite  line  of  common- 
place work.  Their  inferiority  causes  them  to  expect  de- 
feat in  life's  battle.  Uncertainty,  fear  of  the  future, 
drive  them  to  quick,  rash  action  in  the  fulfilment  of  their 
desire  for  power.  The  committing  of  the  crime  itself, 
not  only  constitutes  a  wish  fulfilment,  but  offers  the  crim- 
inal compensation  for  his  feeling  of  inferiority.  The 
criminal  deed,  be  it  one  that  requires  skill  or  one  that  re- 
quires strength,  raises  the  criminal  in  his  own  estimation. 


196  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

The  theory  of  a  criminal  class  or  of  inherited  criminal 
tendencies  has  been  abandoned  by  all  up-to-date  writers 
on  the  subject.  After  examining  one  thousand  criminals 
Dr.  Edith  R.  Spaulding  and  Dr.  William  Healy  have 
characterised  that  theory  as  "  an  unsubstantiated  meta- 
physical hypothesis."  We  may  also  discard  StekeFs  state- 
ment that  every  neurotic  is  a  potential  criminal. 

Of  course  many  pyromaniacs,  for  instance,  are  neu- 
rotics, and  many  neurotics  may  be  said  to  stand  on  the 
verge  of  criminality.  Few  of  them,  however,  yield  to  the 
temptation.  In  fact,  the  onset  of  a  neurosis  indicates 
that  the  individual  is  abandoning  an  aggressive  attitude 
for  a  more  social  one  and  repressing  his  urges. 

Many  compulsion  neurotics  turn  from  their  sadist  urg- 
ings  to  reassuring  measures  or  penance  measures.  They 
often  over-compensate  by  developing  leanings  toward  anti- 
vivisectionism,  vegetarianism  for  humane  reasons,  pre- 
vention of  cruelty  to  animals,  ostentatious  charity,  at  the 
same  time  showing  little  tolerance  for  their  opponents 
and  glorying  in  the  sentences  imposed  upon  them. 

The  neurotic  does  not  become  a  criminal;  he  becomes 
an  unconscious  tyrant.  Through  the  Imaginings  of  an 
accentuated  conscience  and  an  exaggerated  feeling  of 
guilt,  the  neurotic,  craving  for  power,  abandons  the 
straight  path  of  aggression  and  conquest.  He  tyrannizes 
over  others  and  tortures  them  often  after  torturing  him- 
self. Conscience,  developed  by  the  self-protection  urge, 
exaggerates  the  self-valuation  as  a  protective  measure, 
and  is  deified  by  the  neurotic  as  a  means  of  inflicting  suf- 
fering on  others. 

When  everything  falls,  he  may  ransack  his  memory  for 
acts  which  prove  him  kind  and  affectionate  and  for  acts 


CRIME    AND    PUNISHMENT  1 97 

which  may,  for  instance,  prove  his  sexual  partner  hard 
and  selfish.  This,  of  course,  requires  an  amount  of  im- 
agination, conscious  or  unconscious,  which  the  ordinary 
criminal  does  not  possess.  The  neurotic  considers  reality 
as  a  disturbing  element  and  an  insurmountable  obstacle. 
The  criminal,  being  a  silly  romanticist,  believes,  much  as 
the  schisophrenic  does,  that  his  fictitious  life  can  be  lived 
without  interference  from  the  world  of  reality. 

The  criminal's  lack  of  imagination  makes  it  the  more 
preposterous  to  expect  from  him  the  mental  readjustment 
implied  by  those  who  speak  of  expiation.  The  vocabu- 
lary of  the  underworld  is  enough  to  enlighten  us  as  to  the 
mental  processes  of  the  average  lawbreaker.  The  crim- 
inal who  falls  into  the  clutches  of  the  police  is  "  in  trou- 
ble "  or  "  down  on  his  luck."  There  is  not  in  him  the 
sense  of  guilt  which  prevents  the  neurotic  from  committing 
any  overt  acts  likely  to  bring  retaliation  on  the  part  of 
society. 

"  How  discouraging  it  is,"  White  writes,  "  to  hear  a 
magistrate  read  a  sermon  on  morality  to  some  degraded 
wretch  who  has  been  found  guilty  of  some  perhaps,  minor 
offence,  and  then  send  him  to  prison.  .  .  .  The  criminal 
act  which  finally  leads  to  a  prison  sentence  is  but  the  out- 
come of  a  life  of  distorted  viewpoints,  of  standards  of 
conduct  turned  and  twisted  out  of  all  semblance  to  those 
with  which  we  are  familiar,  and  to  expect  that  the  natural 
product  of  such  conditions  can  be  metamorphosed  by  a 
three-minute  sermon  displays  a  profound  ignorance  of 
human  beings." 

For  the  human  material  from  which  criminals  come  is 
indeed  very  poor,  mentally  and  physically.  In  his  re- 
port on  school  attendance.  Dr.  I.  H.  Goldberger  stated 


198  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

among  other  things  that  all  truants  have  a  higher  blood 
pressure  than  normal  children  of  the  same  age.  Accord- 
ing to  Lewis,  out  of  1425  inmates  of  the  New  York 
work-house,  examined  in  19 14,  35  were  unable  to  work 
owing  to  physical  disability,  between  fifty  and  a  hundred 
per  cent  of  the  children  held  in  institutions  had  bad  teeth 
and  eighty  per  cent  of  the  women  committed  to  the  work- 
house were  suffering  from  local  or  contagious  diseases. 
An  investigation  of  one  hundred  criminals  committed  to 
the  Indiana  State  prison  revealed  that  12  were  insane,  23 
feeble  minded,  38  constitutionally  inferior,  17  psychotics 
and  10  epileptics. 

And  it  may  be  that  many  of  those  men  and  women,  espe- 
cially if  they  were  paranoiacs,  would,  when  brought  into 
court,  give  the  impression  of  being  perfectly  sane,  some 
of  them  showing  the  superficial  cleverness  and  brilliancy 
of  paranoia.  Only  trained  observers  would  realize  how 
absurd  all  their  mental  operations  were. 

For  criminals,  like  neurotics  and  psychotics,  seldom 
know  how  to  use  their  minds.  They  are  dominated  en- 
tirely by  their  ego  and  their  sex  urge  and  thus  far  we  have 
devised  nothing  better  than  consigning  them  to  a  place 
where  the  existence  of  the  sexual  need  is  denied  and  where 
prisoners  lose  their  identity. 

Not  only  will  the  criminal  not  "  expiate  "  his  crime,  but 
after  a  few  months  or  years,  a  psychosis  will  probably  de- 
feat society's  plans  for  his  punishment.  Some  mental  de- 
rangement will  cause  him  to  consider  himself  as  a  victim, 
railroaded  to  jail  through  a  conspiracy,  pardoned  but  held 
unlawfully  by  wicked  guardians. 

When  that  stage  is  reached,  the  statements  made  by 
well-meaning  but   ignorant  moralists  on   the   subject   of 


CRIME   AND   PUNISHMENT  I99 

expiation   and    redemption    appear    gruesomely    farcical. 

For  the  more  severe  the  punishment  inflicted,  the  more 
complete  the  compensation  afforded  by  insanity. 

Longard,  in  his  "  Geisteskrankheiten  bei  Gefangenen," 
states  emphatically  that  solitary  confinement  is  the  most 
frequent  cause  of  the  psychoses  which  compensate  the 
offender  for  his  lost  freedom. 

Enforced  silence  is  generally  compensated  for  by  hal- 
lucinations of  an  auditory  character,  voices  which  in  that 
silence  speak  to  the  prisoner,  and  by  manic  outbursts 
which  enable  the  prisoner  to  chatter  or  howl  to  his  heart's 
content.  Being  insane,  he  can  no  longer  be  subjected  to 
the  punishment  provided  by  the  prison's  disciplinary  rules. 

Those  who  administer  justice  and  punishment  should 
ponder  what  Rijdin  wrote  in  his  "  Clinical  Forms  of  Men- 
tal Disturbances  in  Life  Prisoners  "  :  "  The  prisoner 
carries  on  a  stubborn,  continuous,  conscious  and  uncon- 
scious struggle  against  the  effects  which  the  murder  has 
upon  his  conscience  and  fate.  At  first  he  is  still  uncertain, 
but  always  succumbs  again  and  again  to  those  abnormal 
expressions  of  mental  and  physical  torpidity  which  so  fre- 
quently develop  in  connection  with  powerful  psychogenic 
stimuli,  and  finally  finds  his  equilibrium  through  incessant 
brooding  and  unconscious  repression  of  all  the  factors 
which  oppress  his  conscience. 

"  Thus  he  succeeds  with  full  conviction  to  replace  actual 
occurrences  with  a  tissue  of  delusional  ideas,  in  which  he 
is  no  longer  a  justly  punished  criminal  but  an  innocently 
persecuted  individual.  This  sort  of  individual  might 
have  never  come  into  contact  with  a  psychiatrist  had  he 
not  been  given  a  sentence." 

A  study  of  prison  psychoses  convinces  one  that  Impris- 


200  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

onment  can  only  make  a  man  worse  physically  and  men- 
tally, and  that  what  is  needed  is  not  punishment  but  educa- 
tion. 

A  few  hundred  years  ago  the  insane  man  was  treated 
as  a  criminal.  In  a  hundred  years  every  criminal  will  be 
treated  as  a  diseased  man. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  PSYCHOANALYTIC  TREATMENT 

From  what  has  been  said  in  the  previous  chapters  the 
reader  has  probably  gathered  the  impression  that  the 
field  of  psychoanalytic  treatment  was  rather  limited. 
The  number  of  physical  symptoms  which  may  be  produced 
by  unconscious  ideas  is  rather  large.  Kempf,  in  "  The 
Autonomic  Functions  and  the  Personality,"  mentions 
among  the  derangements  caused  by  the  repression  of  in- 
tense affections,  loss  of  appetite,  gastric  irritability,  ten- 
dency to  nausea  and  vomiting,  diarrhoea,  dyspnea,  head- 
aches, cardiac  palpitation,  blushing,  disturbances  of  the 
menses,  insomnia,  general  hypochondriacal  complaints,  ec- 
centric physical  attitudes,  and  long,  enduring,  gross, 
psychoneurotic  derangements. 

White  writes  in  his  "  Principles  of  Mental  Hygiene  " : 
"  The  number  and  duration  of  physical  and  apparently 
physical  disorders  which  may  originate  at  the  psychologi- 
cal level  is  endless.  It  includes  many  forms  of  asthma, 
sore  throat,  difficult  nasal  breathing,  stammering,  head- 
ache, neurasthenia,  backache,  tender  spine,  '  weak  heart,' 
faint  attacks,  exophthalmic  goitre  (Graves's  or  Basedow's 
disease),  aphonia,  spasmodic  sneezing,  hiccough,  rapid 
respiration,  h^y  fever,  gastro-intestinal  disturbances, 
(constipation,  uiarrhoea,  indigestion,  colitis,  ulcer  of 
stomach),  ptosis  of  kidney,  diabetes,  disturbances  of  uri- 
nation,  polyuria,    incontinence,   precipitancy,    (menstrual 

aoi 


202  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

disorders,  auto-Intoxication  (from  long  digestive  disturb- 
ance), nutritional  disorders  of  skin,  teeth  and  hair, 
etc." 

But  while  all  those  disturbances  may  be  psychogenic, 
no  analyst  would  at  the  present  day  state  that  they  are 
always  psychogenic. 

The  psychoanalyst  never  assumes  the  attitude  of  the 
Christian  Scientist  or  of  the  New  Thoughter.  Psycho- 
analysis does  not  deny  or  even  minimize  the  importance  of 
medicine  or  surgery.  The  analyst  only  begins  his  work 
when  the  physician  declares  himself  unable  to  allay  the 
symptoms  by  any  known  medical  means.  In  other  words, 
psychoanalysis  does  not  attempt  to  treat  any  physical  dis- 
turbance whose  origin  has  been  declared  physical.  It 
does  not  treat  pneumonia,  typhoid  or  scarlet  fever,  any 
more  than  it  would  broken  limbs. 

While  a  few  psychotics  have  been  improved  by  the 
psychoanalytic  treatment,  analysts  generally  confine  them- 
selves to  the  treatment  of  neurotics,  and  here  again  a  sci- 
entifically conservative  attitude  has  to  be  observed. 

The  very  young  and  the  very  old  cannot  be  analyzed. 
The  young  lack  the  necessary  concentration,  the  old  lack 
the  necessary  plasticity.  Idiots  and  feeble-minded  peo- 
ple, patients  In  a  highly  excited  condition  can  receive  no 
help  at  the  hands  of  an  analyst. 

Dr.  Jelliffe  warns  analysts  against  treating  homosexual 
types  who  are  likely  to  gossip  about  the  analyst  and  call 
him  a  fakir  or  a  quack.  Hysterical  young  girls  arc 
equally  dangerous. 

Idle  sensation-seekers  who  go  from  analyst  to  analyst, 
expecting  to  be  amused  or  to  be  offered  psychological 
excuses  for  sexual  licence,  must  be  avoided.     Either  they 


THE    PSYCHOANALYTIC   TREATMENT  203 

seek  the  latest  cure  for  the  sake  of  "  making  conversa- 
tion "  and  soon  lose  their  interest,  the  analytic  method 
appearing  to  them  too  tedious,  or  they  come  with  a  cow- 
ardly intent.  Unsatisfied  wives  would  gl'adly  unburden 
themselves  of  the  responsibility  of  taking  a  lover.  Hus- 
bands suffering  from  "  psychic  impotence  "  with  their 
wives,  would  like  to  be  given  "  ethical  "  reasons  for  con- 
sorting with  prostitutes. 

In  a  word,  the  type  of  patient  to  be  treated  is  the 
serious-minded  person  of  at  least  average  intelligence  and 
culture,  who  is  normal  and  clearminded  enough  to  feel 
that  his  or  her  mental  activities  are  not  absolutely  as  sat- 
isfactory as  they  should  be,  and  who  of  his  own  volition 
decides  to  seek  advice  and  help,  or  to  whom  physicians  and 
specialists  have  stated  that  a  certain  physical  complaint  is 
probably  due  to  a  mental  cause. 

A  word  must  be  said  here  on  the  question  as  to  whether 
analysts  should  of  necessity  be  physicians.  Freud  in  his 
introduction  to  a  book  by  Oskar  Pfister  (a  lay  analyst) 
has  answered  it  as  follows : 

*'  It  may  be  asked  whether  the  practice  of  psychoanaly- 
sis does  not  presuppose  a  medical  education  or  whether 
other  relations  are  not  antagonistic  to  the  purpose  of 
placing  the  psychoanalytic  technique  in  other  than  medical 
hands.     I  confess  that  I  see  no  such  obstacles. 

"  The  practice  of  psychoanalysis  demands  not  so  much 
medical  education  as  psychological  education  and  free  hu- 
man insight.  The  majority  of  physicians  are  not  fitted 
for  the  practice  of  psychoanalysis  and  have  completely 
failed  in  placing  a  correct  valuation  on  this  method  of 
treatment." 

The  great  Swedish  analyst,  Dr.  Poul  Bjerre,  who  like 


204  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Freud  was  a  medical  practitioner  before  he  specialized  In 
analysis,  writes: 

"  Unfortunately  the  doctor,  because  of  the  strong  ma- 
terial features  Incident  to  his  whole  education,  has  diffi- 
culty in  estimating  psychic  factors  at  their  full  value;  be- 
sides, how  is  he  to  give  himself  time  to  hear  everything 
a  patient  has  to  tell?  His  time  is  already  full  of  things 
which  more  directly  fall  into  his  sphere  of  action.  Inti- 
mate conversation  is  to  him  always  something  incidental." 

The  question  of  time  raised  by  Dr.  Bjerre  is  indeed 
Important,  While  the  average  physician  may  see  be- 
tween three  and  six  patients  in  the  course  of  an  hour  at 
his  office,  analyst  and  patient  should  be  closeted  together 
away  from  all  disturbances  for  about  one  hour  at  a 
time. 

Besides,  the  analyst  must  spend  a  certain  amount  of 
time  going  over  the  notes  which  he  must  constantly  take  in 
the  course  of  an  analysis,  If  he  is  to  follow  closely  the 
psychological  development  of  his  various  patients.  He 
must  never  rely  on  his  memory,  for  his  personal  prejudices 
and  idiosyncrasies  are  likely  to  distort  his  reminiscences. 

The  beginning  of  the  analysis  Is  of  crucial  Importance. 

The  very  first  sentence  spoken  by  the  subject  In  explain- 
ing'his  trouble  generally  is  the  key  to  the  entire  situation. 
The  first  Impression  made  by  the  analyst  may  establish 
from  the  first  minute  the  relationship  upon  which  the  suc- 
cess of  the  analysis  depends  to  a  certain  extent. 

Certain  analysts  believe  In  taking  first  the  subject's 
history  In  every  detail  and  then  for  several  hours  letting 
the  patient's  mind  wander  over  any  subjects  he  may  care 
to  talk  about,  gradually  securing  a  mental  picture  of  the 
subject. 


THE    PSYCHOANALYTIC   TREATMENT  205 

This  method  is  the  best  with  highly  cultivated  patients 
to  whom  money  considerations  are  secondary. 

To  a  large  number  of  patients,  however,  it  may  ap- 
pear, unjustly,  too  slow  and  too  expensive. 

Suspicious  patients,  in  restricted  circumstances,  may 
feel  that  the  analyst  is  causing  them  unnecessary  expense 
and  should  reach  his  goal  by  a  shorter  road. 

In  the  case  of  patients  whose  mentality  and  culture  are 
not  of  the  highest  type,  the  analyst,  by  merely  listening  to 
the  recital  of  experiences,  some  of  which  may  be  highly 
distorted  or  "  colored,"  exposes  himself  to  the  suspicion 
of  gullibility  and  lack  of  psychological  insight.  The  pa- 
tient, intent  on  presenting  his  case  in  the  most  favorable 
light,  and  conscious  of  a  certain  dishonesty,  is  bound  to 
resent  the  analyst's  attitude,  which  he  attributes  to  gullibil- 
ity. "  If  I  can  fool  him  so  easily,  how  can  he  help  me 
mentally?  " 

At  the  same  time  any  expression  of  disbelief  in  the  pa- 
tient's statements  would  create  at  once  a  very  hostile  feel- 
ing which  it  would  take  time  to  remove. 

A  sneering  patient  and  an  Insulted  patient  are  very  bad 
subjects  for  analytic  study. 

Certain  patients  are  on  their  guard  against  the  analyst. 
They  consciously  wish  to  be  rid  of  a  neurosis.  Uncon- 
sciously, however,  that  neurosis  may  be  their  most  valu- 
able possession  and  they  will  do  their  utmost  "  uncon- 
sciously "  to  defeat  his  efforts.  Remember  Dostoyev- 
sky's  letter  to  his  brother  in  which  he  expressed  his  de- 
termination to  become  insane  in  order  to  solve  his  diffi- 
culties. 

To  this  type  of  patient  the  analyst  Is  the  worst  enemy. 

The  solution  in  such  cases  consists  in  resorting  to  im- 


206  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

personal,  mechanical  means  for  probing  the  subject's 
mind,  without  asking  any  questions;  even  as  a  physician 
will  take  a  patient's  temperature,  pulse  and  respiration, 
and  without  having  asked  even  one  question  will  know 
positively  whether  certain  physical  disturbances  are  pres- 
ent or  absent. 

An  hour  should  be  spent  listening  to  the  patient's  story. 

In  the  next  hour  a  rapid  study  of  the  patient's  reactions 
to  stimulus-words  should  be  made. 

The  mental  picture  thus  obtained  will  be  an  excellent 
guide  in  future  prospecting  operations  and  will  often  en- 
able the  analyst  to  make  statements  which  will  impress 
the  suspicious  patient  with  the  idea  that  his  lies,  conscious 
or  semi-conscious,  will  be  received  only  at  a  great  discount. 
Puritanical  patients,  secretive  or  dishonest  as  regards 
their  sex  life,  may  be,  gently  but  firmly,  led  to  a  more 
trusting  attitude  when  a  study  of  their  reactions  reveals 
strong  sexual  desires  or  suffering  due  to  their  lack  of 
gratification. 

Certain  analysts  examine  the  patient  while  he  Is  reclin- 
ing on  a  couch,  his  eyes  closed.  They  seat  themselves 
at  the  head  of  the  couch.  This  position  has  great  advan- 
tages from  the  point  of  view  of  complete  relaxation  of 
all  muscles,  but  It  makes  a  study  of  the  facial  expression 
difficult;  the  arms  and  hands  resting  on  the  couch  no 
longer  perform  certain  gestures  which  reveal  many  emo- 
tions, the  shrugging  of  shoulders  and  other  defence  mo- 
tions are  impossible,  and  finally,  to  certain  hysterical 
women,  the  position  carries  a  certain  sexual  sugges- 
tion. 

The  substitution  of  a  wide,  soft,  comfortable  armchair 


THE    PSYCHOANALYTIC   TREATMENT 


207 


for  a  couch  facilitates  the  study  of  facial  expression,  does 
not  impede  the  play  of  muscles  in  hands  and  arms,  leaves 
the  shoulders  and  head  free  for  action. 

The  patient  is  then  asked  to  remain  very  quiet  for  a 
minute  or  so,  possibly  to  count  mentally  from  one  to  a 
hundred  and  then  he  is  asked  to  tell  the  analyst  the  first 
thing  that  comes  to  his  mind  when  specially  selected  stim- 
ulus-words are  read  aloud  to  hint. 

He  is  cautioned  against  exercising  any  critical  judg- 
ment on  his  own  answers,  and  to  tell  at  once  whatever  he 
happens  to  think  of,  be  it  a  name,  a  color,  a  number,  a 
person,  an  adjective,  an  Image  or  whatever  else  may  ap- 
pear in  his  field  of  mental  vision. 

The  experiment  may  be  repeated  under  varying  condi- 
tions, the  patient  being  allowed  the  second  time  to  keep 
his  eyes  open,  and  thereby  to  be  Influenced  by  visual 
stimuli.  A  monotonous  phonograph  record  or  the  tick- 
ing of  a  metronome  may  be  allowed  to  disturb  the  patient, 
thus  showing  the  Influence  of  outside  auditive  stimuli. 

The  stimulus  words  generally  employed  by  analysts 
were  selected  by  the  Zurich  analysts.     The  list  follows : 


1  head 

2  green 

3  water 

4  to  sing 

5  dead 

6  long 

7  ship 

8  to  pay 

9  window 
10   friendly 


1 1  to  cook 

12  to  ask 

13  cold 

14  stem 

15  to  dance 

16  village 

17  lake 

18  sick 

19  pride 

20  table 


21  ink 

22  angry 

23  needle 

24  to  swim 

25  voyage 

26  blue 

27  lamp 

28  to  sin 

29  bread 

30  rich 


208 


PSYCHOANALYSIS 


31  tree 

32  to  prick 

33  pity 

34  yellow 

35  mountain 

36  to  die 

37  salt 

38  new 

39  custom 

40  to  pray 

41  money 

42  foolish 

43  pamphlet 

44  despise 

45  finger 

46  expensive 

47  bird 

48  to  fall 

49  book 

50  unjust 

51  frog 

52  to  part 

53  hunger 

54  white 


55  child 

56  to  take  care 

57  pencil 

58  sad 

59  plum 

60  to  marry 

61  house 

62  dear 

63  glass 

64  to  quarrel 

65  fur 
big 
carrot 
to  paint 
organ 
old 

flowers 
to  beat 
box 
wild 
family 
to  wash 


66 

67 

68 

69 
70 

71 
72 

73 

74 

75 
76 

77 
78 


cow 
friend 


79  luck 

80  lie 

81  behavior 

82  narrow 

83  brother 

84  to  fear 

85  love 

86  false 

87  anxiety 

88  to  kiss 

89  bride 

90  pure 

91  door 

92  to  choose 

93  hay 

94  contented 

95  ridicule 

96  to  sleep 

97  month 

98  nice 

99  woman 
100  to  abuse 


An  absolutely  normal  person  will  give  a  reaction  to 
each  of  these  stimulus  words  in  about  3  seconds. 

A  decrease  in  the  average  reaction-time,  for  instance 
if  the  average  reaction-time  to  the  first  fifty  words  should 
be  3^  seconds  and  to  the  last  fifty  lYz  seconds,  would 
indicate  a  certain  display  of  will-power  leading  to  better 
concentration. 


THE   PSYCHOANALYTIC   TREATMENT  209 

The  reverse  would  indicate  a  mind  easily  fatigued  and 
easily  distracted. 

When  the  patient  repeats  the  stimulus-word,  he  be- 
trays the  fact  that  the  word  has  very  personal  import  for 
him. 

If  he  repeats  it  several  times,  the  connotation  of  the 
word  is  lils.ely  to  be  unpleasant  or  humiliating.  He  gives 
himself  time  to  find  an  answer. 

If  the  word  is  misunderstood  or  the  patient  asks  the 
analyst:  "  V/hat  do  you  mean?"  the  word  has  some 
very  painful  association.  That  question,  when  asked  on 
hearing  words  like  "  to  fall "  or  "  to  sin  "  has  a  very  ob- 
vious meaning.  The  patient  is  unconsciously  hoping  he 
has  not  heard  the  right  word. 

Blushing  after  words,  like  "  to  kiss,"  "  sin,"  "  fall," 
reveals  a  personal,  generally  recent  experience. 

If  the  patient's  eyes  are  cautiously  opened  and  then 
quickly  shut,  the  analyst  may  know  he  has  touched  a  sore 
spot,  and  that  the  patient  wants  to  know  what  impres- 
sion his  answer  has  made. 

Long  reaction-time  indicates  a  "  complex."  In  other 
words,  some  repressed  idea  has  been  awakened  by  the 
stimulus-word  and  the  patient's  mind  has  made  an  effort  to 
give  expression  to  it.  Either  the  idea  has  come  up  to  the 
consciousness  slowly,  or  a  similar  idea,  less  objectionable, 
has  been  substituted  for  it,  and  the  answer  has  been 
thereby  delayed. 

The  disturbance  caused  by  touching  a  complex  may 
spread  to  the  next  two  or  three  reaction  words.  If  the 
reaction  time  for  stimulus  word  5  is  45  seconds,  the 
reaction  time  for  stimuli  6  and  7  may  be  20  seconds.  The 
stimuH  thus  affected  should  be  tried  several  times  in  order 


210  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

to  determine  whether  their  reaction  time  was  unduly 
lengthened  through  proximity  to  a  stimulus  revealing  a 
complex,  or  whether  they  too  are  connected  with  some 
unconscious  repressive  activity. 

A  patient  who,  instead  of  one  single  word,  gives  several 
words  in  answer  to  stimulus-words,  is  giving  more  than 
is  asked,  and  may  thereby  betray  a  feeling  of  inferiority 
or  incompleteness. 

The  same  answer  to  several  stimulus  words  Indicates 
an  obsession  m  the  patient.  Jung  cites  a  patient  of  his 
who  answered  "  short  "  to  several  words  of  the  stimulus- 
list.  He  had  all  his  life  been  disturbed  over  his  small 
stature. 

The  patient  who  instead  of  one  reaction-word  gives 
"definitions,"  such  as  "door:  entrance  to  a  house," 
"plum:  a  fruit,"  belongs  to  the  inferior  type  of  intelli- 
gence that  feels  compelled  to  state  the  obvious. 

Literary  answers,  such  as,  "kiss:  a  token  of  love," 
"mountain:  one  of  nature's  wonders,"  reveal  affectation 
and  an  effort  to  appear  refined  and  cultivated. 

The  emotional  type  generally  gives  "  gushing "  an- 
swers: "  flowers:  very  lovely  things,"  "  anxiety:  horrible 
feeling." 

The  egotist  will  express  his  own  feelings  in  regard  to 
every  word  mentioned:  "  Bread:  I  like  it,"  "  Green:  I 
don't  like  that  color." 

Patients  with  a  "  cussed,"  contrary,  turn  of  mind,  or  a 
tendency  to  a  splitting  of  the  personality  will  always  an- 
swer with  the  opposite  whenever  possible:  "Black: 
white,"  "  short:  long." 

The  normal  person  will  give,  the  same  answer  several 
times  in  succession  to  the  same  stimulus-word. 


THE    PSYCHOANALYTIC   TREATMENT  211 

If  the  reproduction  is  faulty,  the  analyst  knows  that 
there  is  a  complex  connected  with  the  stimulus-word,  the 
unconscious  witholding  a  direct  answer  and  offering  sub- 
stitutes for  what  should  be  the  actual  reaction. 

A  complex  may  be  indicated  as  follows : 


Stimulus- 
word 

love 

Reaction- 
time 

30  sec. 

Physical 
reaction 

laughter 

Word 
reaction 

fields 

Repro- 
duction 

impossible 

narrow 

35  sec. 

Ugly 

indifferent 

When  a  number  of  complexes  have  been  found,  a  sec- 
ondary list  of  stimulus-words  may  be  established,  taking 
those  complex  words  as  a  basis,  and  a  new  reaction-test 
made  which  enables  the  analyst  to  determine  the  exact  lim- 
its of  every  complex. 

A  "  money  "  complex  might  be  delimitated  by  estab- 
lishing a  list  that  would  contain  all  the  words  connected 
with  money:  earning,  spending,  saving,  giving  away,  etc. 

Secondary  complexes  can  be  also  discovered  by  that 
method. 

The  patient  is  then  asked  to  elaborate  upon  the  complex 
words.  The  analyst  asks  the  patient  to  tell  him,  not 
simply  the  first  thing  that  comes  to  his  mind,  but  every- 
thing, regardless  of  sequence  or  relevancy. 

A  long  pause  in  the  narrative  always  points  to  some 
complex.  The  gap  indicates,  according  to  its  size,  a 
large  or  small  amount  of  painful,  repressed  material. 

When  the  patient  stops  and  says  "  That's  all,"  the  an- 
alyst's task  really  begins.  By  digging  right  there  he  is 
likely  to  unearth  a  corpse.  The  expression  "  That's  all  " 
or  "I  can't  think  of  anything  else  "  is  an  unconscious  at- 
tempt at  blocking  the  search  when  the  search  is  likely  to 
run  dangerously  close  to  something  hidden. 


a  12  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

A  patient  of  mine  was  unable  after  45  seconds  to  give 
an  answer  to  the  stimulus  "  tree." 

Patient  cross-examination  finally  brought  to  light  the 
fact  that  at  the  age  of  9  the  patient  had  been  terribly- 
frightened  by  a  man  falling  from  a  tree  almost  at  his 
feet  and  crushing  his  skull  on  a  stone.  In  later  life,  the 
patient,  who  wrote  fiction,  had  only  mentioned  trees  twice 
in  his  writings.  On  those  two  occasions,  trees  played  a 
sinister  part  in  the  narrative. 

A  "  needle  "  complex  led  to  a  curious  childhood  mem- 
ory in  a  young  woman  of  28.  When  a  very  small  girl 
she  had  cut  her  chin  and  a  physician  had  been  called  to 
take  several  stitches  to  close  the  wound  and  the  horror 
caused  by  the  needle  in  those  days  has  not  disappeared 
22  years  later. 

A  young  epileptic  who,  in  early  childhood,  fell  on 
broken  glass  and  cut  himself  painfully,  reacted  with  the 
word  "  fear  "  to  the  stimulus  "  glass  "  and  this  only  after 
20  seconds. 

Three  examples  of  elaboration  will  indicate  how  this 
operation  revives  "  dead  "  memories  leading  back  gen- 
erally to  childhood  years. 

Complexes,  indicated  by  a  long  reaction-time,  were 
elaborated  upon  as  follows: 

Neck  .  .  .  neck  .  .  .  trees  ...  a  pond  ...  a  head- 
ache .  .  .  drowning  sort  of  feeling  ,  .  .  blind  .  .  . 
factory  .  .  .  my  father  worked  there  .  .  .  playing  with 
children  .  .  .  Oh,  yes  ...  a  child  fell  on  me  ...  I 
was  about  seven  .  .  .  my  neck  was  dislocated;  they  called 
my  father  from  the  factory  and  he  carried  me  to  the  doc- 
tor ... 


THE   PSYCHOANALYTIC   TREATMENT  213 

Frog  .  .  .  disgust  ...  I  can't  think  of  anything 
.  .  .  that's  all  .  .  .  disgust  .  .  .  sexual  organ  .  .  . 
loathing  .  .  .  something  slimy  .  .  .  same  feeling  as  a 
snake  .  .  .  when  I  was  a  child  I  was  told  I  shouldn't 
touch  frogs  for  they  gave  warts  .  .  .  about  that  time 
.   .  .   they  warned  me  against  masturbation. 

Die  .  .  .  fear  .  .  .  maggots  ...  I  used  to  fear 
death  ...  I  hate  to  see  dead  people  ...  I  am  thinking 
of  some  girls  .  .  .  they  came  to  see  another  girl  that  was 
dead  ...  a  silk  cloth  ...  I  lifted  it  so  they  could  look 
at  her  face  ...  I  touched  her  cold  face  ...  It  gave  me 
a  terrible  shock  .   .   . 

All  the  reaction-words  and  their  faulty  reproduction 
stand  in  close  connection  to  another  and  are  related  to  the 
obsessive  idea  and  the  emotional  complexes  responsible 
for  the  patient's  mental  condition. 

The  discrepancies  between  the  first  reaction  and  the  fol- 
lowing reproductions  become  greater  with  each  examina- 
tion. The  first  one  is  likely  to  be  more  truthful  than 
the  following  ones.  The  second  covers  up  the  sore  spot 
more  carefully  than  the  first  one. 

The  very  order  in  which  words  appear  in  the  elabora- 
tion has  a  definite  meaning.  There  is  no  actual  disorder 
in  anyone's  thoughts,  and  if  certain  words  are  closely  as- 
sociated in  the  elaboration,  they  are  just  as  closely  asso- 
ciated in  complex  or  a  constellation  of  complexes. 

The  words  "  as  if  "  employed  by  the  patient  in  the 
elaboration  should  be  taken  as  the  positive  affirmation  of 
some  fact  subjected  to  a  certain  amount  of  repression. 

*'  As  if  I  was  doing  a  certain  thing  "  means  "  I  am  do- 
ing that  thing  but  do  not  care  to  say  so." 


214  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

The  three  examples  of  elaboration  I  gave  above  show 
that  by  taking  the  reactions  and  having  the  patient  elab- 
orate upon  them  from  the  very  beginning,  the  analyst  de- 
rives a  good  mental  picture  of  the  patient  and  begins  the 
cure  at  once. 

Very  often  the  patient  makes  the  following  remarks: 
"  I  had  entirely  forgotten  that  incident,"  "  I  have  never 
mentioned  it  to  anyone  in  20  years,"  etc.  Most  of  the 
things  "  forgotten  "  were  painful  and  hence  repressed, 
and  likely  to  create  a  disturbance  by  their  constant  striv- 
ing for  expression.  As  Freud  says  somewhere  "  neu- 
rotics suffer  from  reminiscences."  Those  reminiscences 
are  unconscious.  Making  them  conscious  destroys  at 
once  their  power  for  harm.  Since  most  phobias  are  due 
to  gaps  in  memory  which  prevent  us  from  connecting  cause 
and  effect,  filling  up  the  gaps  in  the  patient's  memory  can- 
not but  be  helpful. 

By  this  time,  the  subject,  even  If  he  is  of  the  suspicious 
kind,  may  have  acquired  a  certain  confidence  in  the  an- 
alyst. 

There  are  details  of  his  life,  however,  concerning 
which  he  is  likely  to  be  extremely  secretive  and  on  which 
he  will  volunteer  no  information  except  in  an  indirect 
way  through  his  reactions,  until  you  break  his  resistance. 
Dreams  are  the  royal  road  into  the  forbidden  lands  of 
ego  and  sex. 

Once  a  patient  who  showed  some  reluctance  to  men- 
tioning sex-matters  brought  me  the  following  dream:' 
"  I  was  helping  a  man  to  pack  a  trunk.  When  he  got 
through  I  said  to  him,  '  There  is  no  need  for  you  to  go 
away.'  " 


THE    PSYCHOANALYTIC   TREATMENT  215 

When  I  told  her  that  according  to  that  dream,  her  men- 
struation period  would  begin  about  a  week  from  the  night 
when  she  dreamt  of  that  incident,  she  realized  that  dis- 
simulation would  be  useless. 

At  the  beginning  of  an  analysis  a  patient  is  likely  not  to 
have  any  dreams  for  several  nights.  This  is  a  form  of 
resistance  of  the  unconscious  against  possible  revelations. 
The  thing  to  do  then  is  to  examine  the  past  dreams  which 
recur  most  frequently  in  the  patient's  life. 

Dreams  reveal  to  us  many  complexes,  some  of  them 
very  old  and  some  of  them  of  recent  formation.  The 
part  which  infantile  complexes  may  play  and  the  part 
which  recently  created  complexes  may  play  in  the  dis- 
turbance must  not  be  lightly  determined. 

In  the  course  of  the  analysis,  it  may  be  that  the  pa- 
tient will  dwell  unconsciously  on  infantile  fancies  which 
constitute  a  convenient  scape-goat.  The  patient  may  see 
in  his  infantile  sexuality  a  good  explanation  for  his  present 
wretchedness,  and  thus  gradually  give  the  impression  that 
those  infantile  fancies  are  all-important  in  his  mental 
make-up. 

"  The  neurotic,  seeking  security,  likes  to  represent  his 
first  infantile  experiences  in  a  sexual  light,"  Adler  says. 
"  I  was  already  as  a  child  so  undisciplined,  so  bad," 
"  My  sexual  appetite  was  so  strong,"  "  I  have  such  a  crim- 
inal tendency,"  "  I  am  so  much  the  slave  of  passion," 
these  Adler  writes,  "  are  the  echoes  in  the  mind  of  the 
neurotic  adult.  The  impulse  to  hold  to  appropriate 
memories,  to  falsify  certain  memories  and  to  exaggerate 
traces  of  reminiscences  arises  from  a  fear  of*  defeat. 
When  the  sexual  appetite  has  been  revealed,  where  the 


2  1 6  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

possibility  of  Incest  really  existed,  the  memory  is  pre- 
served as  an  admonitory  sign.  That  which  diverts  the 
neurotic  psyche  is  not  memor}'  or  reminiscence,  but  the 
fictitious  goal  which  derives  profitable  situations  there- 
from." 

In  the  dream  Adler  sees  an  abstracting,  simplifying  en- 
deavor to  find,  by  means  of  premeditation  and  testing  of 
difficulties  carried  on  in  accordance  with  the  patient's  own 
peculiar  scheme,  a  protective  way  for  the  ego-conscious- 
ness out  of  a  situation  which  threatens  defeat. 

.  One  will  always  find  in  the  dream  that  significant 
scheme  of  the  antithetical  mode  of  apperception :  mascu- 
line-feminine, above-beneath,  as  existing  originally  in 
everybody. 

"  The  various  notions  and  recollections  which  come  to 
the  surface  of  the  dream,  must  be  brought  within  the 
scheme  before  they  can  be  of  any  aid  in  the  interpretation 
of  the  dream,  whose  object  is  not  principally  the  fulfil- 
ment of  infantile  wishes,  but  rather  to  accompany  those 
introductory  endeavors,  to  bring  about  a  balance  in  fa- 
vor of  the  ego-consciousness,  through  balancing  the  pa- 
tient's debit-credit  account  In  a  peculiarly  neurotic  man- 
ner." 

The  following  aphorisms  of  Adler's  on  the  subject  of 
dreams  should  be  kept  In  mind  while  analyzing  every 
dream: 

"  The  dream  Is  a  sketch-like  reflection  of  psychic  atti- 
tudes, and  indicates  for  the  Investigator  the  characteris- 
tic manner  In  which  the  dreamer  regards  certain  prob- 
lems." 

"  The  dream  makes  use  of  memory  through  the  hallu- 


THE    PSYCHOANALYTIC   TREATMENT  217 

cinatory  awakening  of  memories  of  a  fear-exciting  and 
energy-exciting  basis." 

"  The  content  of  dreams  receives  a  meaning  only  when 
taken  as  a  symbol  of  life,  as  an  '  as  if.'  " 

"  Repeated  dreams  of  the  same  content  reveal  the  fic- 
titious guiding  line.  They  indicate  attempts  at  several 
solutions  and  a  characteristic  feeling  of  uncertainty." 

Maeder  has  also  formulated  interesting  rules  for  the 
interpretation  of  dreams. 

*'  The  dream,"  he  writes,  "  seeks  a  satisfying  formula 
for  the  unconscious  condition.  It  can  exercise  a  really 
liberating  action,  which  betrays  a  close  relationship  to  the 
work  of  art."  Hence,  the  dream  is,  to  him,  a  part  of 
the  curative  process. 

"  Dreams  that  remain  impressed  on  the  memory  some- 
times for  years,"  he  says,  "  are  the  expression  of  a  clari- 
fied psychic  action.  They  are  milestones  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  personality,  which  lead  the  individual  to  typi- 
cal life-adjustments   or   to   typical   reactions." 

Upon  that  basis,  Maeder  divides  dreams  into  three 
categories:  The  active  dreams  of  intense  achievement 
or  intense  resistance;  the  static  dreams  in  which  there  is 
distinct  stagnation  and  passive  resistance;  finally,  prospec- 
tive dreams  which  are  not  prophetic  but  which  at  the  crit- 
ical moment  may  point  out  a  solution. 

Considering  the  gradual  development  of  the  problem- 
presentation  in  the  dream,  a  characteristic  recognized  by 
analysts  of  all  schools,  it  goes  without  saying  that  no 
dream  can  be  analyzed  separately.  Nor  can  every  de- 
tail of  a  dream  be  accounted  for  until  the  analyst  has  col- 
lected patiently  a  large  number  of  the  subject's  dreams. 


ai8  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

The  patient  should  be  instructed  to  write  down  his 
dreams  on  arising  or  on  waking  up  in  the  middle  of  the 
night,  but  should  not  read  them  off  from  his  manuscript. 
He  may  use  the  manuscript  to  refresh  his  memory,  but  he 
should  recite  his  dreams   from  memory. 

The  very  way  in  which  he  will  relate  the  action,  the 
points  at  which  he  will  hesitate,  the  parts  which,  when  a 
comparison  is  instituted  between  manuscript  and  narra- 
tive, were  omitted  in  the  narrative,  reveal  a  great  many 
things  to  a  trained  observer. 

Freud  says  that  the  so-called  disconnected  character  of 
dreams  and  the  gaps  in  them  are  due  to  the  -fact  that  the 
censor  has  edited  bodily  entire  passages  or  repressed  our 
memory  of  them. 

In  fact,  Freud  thinks  that  dreams  are  like  the  delirium 
of  fever.  The  delirious  patient  seems  to  be  rambling 
aimlessly,  but  anyone  acquainted  with  his  life  problems 
can  fill  the  gaps  in  his  speech  and  establish  a  logical  se- 
quence in  his  apparently  absurd  utterances.  The  ab- 
surdity of  delirious  talk  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  censor 
repressed  many  things  which  the  patient  would  like  to  say 
but  cannot. 

The  subject  should  be  made  to  tell  several  times  the 
same  dream.  The  very  discrepancies  between  the  vari- 
ous narratives  will  reveal  to  the  analyst  complexes  and 
conscious  attempts  at  concealment. 

Freud  states  that  the  analysis  could  very  well  start 
from  the  weak  points  contained  in  the  relation  of  dreams 
by  the  patient,  as  the  parts  we  forget  are  much  more 
important  and  therefore  submitted  to  a  stronger  repres- 
sion than  the  parts  we  remember. 


THE    PSYCHOANALYTIC   TREATMENT  219 

Certain  dreams  give  interesting  revelations  of  the  sub- 
ject's attitude  to  the  analyst.  Jelllffe  very  modestly  cites 
the  case  of  one  of  his  patients  who,  after  the  first  hour 
of  analysis,  dreamed  of  a  man  standing  on  a  balcony  and 
lecturing  in  Chinese  about  some  Hebrew  religion,  a  sym- 
bolic criticism  of  the  scientist,  who  was  talking  above  her 
head,  in  a  language  difficult  to  understand,  about  a  science 
created  by  a  Jew.  Jelliffe,  a  conscientious  practitioner, 
took  the  hint  and  adopted  a  much  simpler  manner  when 
addressing  the  patient,  whom  he  had  credited  with  much 
more  intelligence  than  she  really  had. 

Certain  dreams  herald  clearly  the  patient's  recovery. 
A  subject  of  mine  had  the  following  dream  night  after 
night : 

A  crowd  of  children  was  chasing  him,  throwing  stones 
at  him.  He  tried  vainly  to  escape  them  and  woke  up  in 
terror,  bathed  in  perspiration. 

His  recovery  was  announced  by  the  same  dream,  taking 
an  entirely  different  turn.  Instead  of  running  away,  he 
faced  the  crowd,  which  dwindled  to  one  small  boy,  whom 
he  spanked,  after  which  he  slept  soundly. 

His  whole  attitude  to  life  was  symbolically  depicted  by 
that  change  in  his  dream-fancy.  He  no  longer  tried  to 
escape  difficulties  by  jumping  out  of  his  dream  or  jumping 
out  of  life.     He  faced  the  crowd  and  faced  life. 

To  what  I  said  in  the  chapter  on  Symbols  I  must  add 
one  word  of  caution.  Symbols  have  no  absolute  signifi- 
cance, and  it  is  only  after  studying  carefully  many  dreams 
brought  by  one  subject  that  the  analyst  can  determine 
what  in  those  dreams  is  symbolic  and  what  is  not. 

Certain  people  or  things  appearing  in  dreams  may  be 


220  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

realities  instead  of  symbols.  A  subject  of  mine  in  whose 
reactions  and  dreams  the  color  red  played  an  important 
part  revealed  through  close  examination  that  red  was 
connected  with  painful  impressions  of  her  childhood. 
She  had,  when  very  young,  upset  a  lamp  with  a  red  shade 
over  a  table  covered  with  a  red  cloth  and  set  the  house 
on  fire. 

On  the  other  hand,  people  and  objects  we  think  we 
recognize  as  realities  may  be  symbols.  As  Jung  says, 
we  have  no  right  to  decide  a  priori  that  certain  dream 
visions  are  symbolical  and  some  others  real.  We  may 
commit  grievous  mistakes  of  interpretation  until  we  de- 
termine the  personal  and  contemporaneous  meaning  to 
the  subject  of  certain  dream-details,  and  the  racial-archaic 
symbolism  of  certain  other  particulars  of  the  dream- 
vision. 

Jung  gives  a  striking  illustration  of  a  dream  which 
could  have  been  interpreted  in  an  absolutely  erroneous 
way  by  the  narrow,  superficial  application  of  the  rules  I 
have  given  for  symbol  reading.  The  subject  reported  to 
him  the  following  dream : 

'*  I  was  going  up-stairs  with  my  mother  and  sister. 
When  we  reached  the  top,  I  was  told  that  my  sister  was 
soon  to  have  a  child." 

Careless  reading  would  point  to  an  incest  phantasy. 
"  If  I  hold  the  stairs  to  be  a  symbol,"  Jung  remarks  very 
logically,  "  what  right  have  I  to  assume  that  mother, 
sister  and  child  are  not  symbols  too?  "  And  indeed,  he 
found  that  to  the  dreamer,  the  stairs  stood  for  getting 
to  the  top,  being  successful,  prosperous,  powerful;  his 
mother,  whom  he  had  not  seen  in  years,  reminded  him 
of  things  he  had  neglected,  in  particular  his  work;  his 


THE    PSYCHOANALYTIC   TREATMENT  221 

sister  represented  a  quiet,  womanly  affection;  the  child 
symbolized  a  desire  to  be  reborn,  to  become  a  new 
man.  .  .  . 

Reactions  to  associations,  words,  dreams  and  the  elab- 
oration of  all  the  ideas  brought  out  in  the  course  of  the 
analysis,  give  the  analyst  a  complete  picture  of  the 
patient's  mental  condition. 

There  are  several  threads  he  can  follow  and  which 
will  lead  him  to  the  actual  source  of  the  neurosis. 

The  question  arises:  How  far  back  should  one  go  into 
the  patient's  life?  Freud  holds  that  every  neurosis  has 
its  source  in  Infantile  experiences;  Jung  thinks  that  the 
source  of  the  neurosis  is  in  the  present;  Adler  bases  the 
neurosis  upon  a  feeling  of  inferiority. 

The  only  intelligent  method  consists  In  directing  the 
attack  from  those  three  angles,  not  relying  upon  one 
system  to  arrive  at  the  truth.  In  certain  cases  it  will 
be  Freud,  in  others,  Jung,  and  in  others  Adler  who  will 
give  us  the  proper  solution  of  the  problem.  In  other 
cases  all  three  theories  may  find  their  justification.  It 
matters  not  by  what  means  we  finally  establish  a  con- 
catenation of  causes  and  effects,  provided  we  acquire  a 
perfect  insight  into  the  subject's  trouble  and  succeed  in 
making  him  see  it  as  we  do.  The  analyst  must  remember 
that,  not  being  blinded  by  the  subject's  complexes,  he  will 
see  the  truth  long  before  the  subject  does.  The  subject 
must  not  be  reproved  for  his  blindness  to  apparently  ob- 
vious facts.  A  point  of  view  acquired  In  the  course  of 
several  years'  distorted  thinking  cannot  be  relinquished 
in  one  day.  There  are  too  many  physical  and  mental 
habits  opposing  that  sudden  change. 

The  mental  false  growth  is  the  harder  to  disintegrate 


222  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

a3  the  years  have  caused  It  to  become  harder.  The 
analytic  process  is  extremely  slow,  because  it  is  thorough. 

Hypnotism  yields  apparently  more  gratifying  results 
and  in  a  remarkably  short  time.  But  the  proof  of  a  cure 
is  not  its  rapidity  but  its  permanence.  Dr.  McKendree 
told  us  one  day  at  the  Vanderbilt  Clinic  of  an  old  cab- 
driver  who  was  brought  twice  a  year  to  Dejerine's  Clinic 
to  be  relieved  by  hypnotism  of  a  hemiplegia,  A  hard 
worker,  who  never  took  one  day's  rest,  he  was  stricken 
every  six  months  with  paralysis.  His  unconscious  was 
compelling  him  to  take  a  vacation. 

One  hypnotic  treatment  relieved  him  and  he  went 
away  happy,  to  return  six  months  later.  .  .  .  What  he 
needed  was  not  hypnotism  but  analysis  and  advice,  after 
which  he  would  have  taken  a  conscious,  normal  rest,  in- 
stead of  taking  an  unconscious,  abnormal  vacation  which 
began  with  a  dangerous  fall  from  the  seat  of  his  cab  to 
the  pavement. 

Jung  mentions  In  one  of  his  letters  to  Dr.  Loy  the 
miraculous  cures  he  performed  once  as  a  hypnotist  and 
which  caused  him  to  abandon  hypnotism  forever.  An 
old  woman  would  come  to  him  unable  to  walk.  He  had 
hardly  had  time  to  hypnotize  her  when  she  would  rise  and 
thank  him,  A  few  weeks  later  she  would  come  with 
some  other  painful  ailment  which  would  disappear  just 
as  quickly,  Jung  realised  that  if  he  consented  to  treat 
her,  her  unconscious  would  continually  create  by  conver- 
sion new  diseases  through  whose  treatment  it  would  de- 
rive some  curious  form  of  gratification.  It  was  not  his 
failures  but  such  brilliant  and  spurious  results,  devoid  of 
any  permanency,  which  led  him  to  devote  himself  en- 
tirely to  analysis. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE   TRANSFERENCE 

The  success  of  the  analytic  treatment  depends  almost 
entirely  upon  the  confidence  which  the  subject  feels  in 
the  analyst.  Unless  the  patient  does  his  utmost  to  help 
the  analyst  and  lays  bare  all  his  secrets,  these  secrets  will 
have  to  be  gradually  discovered  by  some  roundabout 
method  and  much  time  will  be  wasted.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  analyst  must  constantly  suspect  his  subject. 
Every  neurotic  symptom  Is  practically  an  unconscious  lie, 
which  deceives  the  patient  but  should  not  deceive  the 
analyst.  The  analyst,  however,  must  keep  his  suspicions 
to  himself. 

If  he  remains  absolutely  impassive,  regardless  of  what 
he  may  hear  or  find  out  indirectly,  if  he  avoids  hurting 
the  patient  by  confronting  him  too  soon  with  some  unpleas- 
ant facts  he  may  have  discovered  through  a  study  of  his 
reactions  or  his  dreams,  if  he  never  passes  a  judgment, 
never  characterises  any  phenomenon  as  foolish,  never 
condemns  or  praises  (for  after  all,  what  our  unconscious 
compels  us  to  do  entitles  us  to  no  praise  and  should  not 
bring  punishment  or  criticism  in  its  wake)  ;  if  he  never 
laughs  or  shows  surprise,  which  to  the  patient's  sensitive 
mind  would  be  synonymous  with  ignorance  or  lack  of 
sympathy,  the  analyst  will  probably  win  his  subject's  ab- 
solute confidence. 

A  relation  is  then  established  which  the  Freudians  have 

223 


224  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

slightly  exaggerated  and  dramatized.  It  is  called 
"  transfer  "  or  "  transference." 

If  a  mentally  disturbed  person,  miserable,  lonely,  diffi- 
dent, misunderstood,  if  not  ridiculed,  meets  with  constant 
sympathy  and  understanding  on  every  one  of  his  calls  at 
the  analyst's  office;  if  he  can  always  secure  a  patient  and 
respectful  hearing  for  anything  he  may  care  to  tell,  and 
which  people  in  his  environment  may  for  years  have  char- 
acterised as  "  crazy  notions,"  his  gratitude  may  lead  him 
to  experience  a  positive  affection  for  the  analyst. 

The  Freudians,  after  declaring  that  such  a  feeling  was 
always  sexual,  have  grown  almost  alarmed  over  it. 

But  sex  is  not  the  only  element  in  the  transference. 
We  must  not  forget  that  the  subject's  ego  derives  a  strong 
gratification  from  the  fact  that  his  fancies  are  taken  seri- 
ously and  studied  scientifically  by  a  man  who,  owing  to 
his  professional  training,  must  be  credited  with  a  certain 
knowledge  of  human  nature. 

The  analyst  takes  the  place  of  a  trusted  parent,  or  an 
older  brother  or  sister,  of  the  school  confidant,  of  the  con- 
fessor or  spiritual  adviser,  with  a  difference  in  his  favor. 
He  is  bound  to  secrecy  by  professional  ethics  and  he  never 
reproves  but  only  studies  his  patients. 

The  result  of  the  establishment  of  a  transference  is 
slightly  paradoxical.  Transference,  as  I  said  before, 
helps  the  cure,  and  without  positive,  loving  transference 
there  would  be  no  cure.  The  patient  who  has  an  unlim- 
ited faith  in  his  analyst  will  respond  more  readily  to  the 
analyst's  efforts  to  probe  his  troubles.  On  the  other 
hand,  an  unconscious  desire  to  show  his  best  side  and  his 
most  engaging  qualities  to  the  analyst  whom  he  likes,  may 
prompt  him  to  conceal  some  of  his  weaknesses.     This 


THE   TRANSFERENCE  225 

situation  requires  a  good  deal  of  tact  to  be  handled  suc- 
cessfully. 

Brutality  might  change  the  subject's  fondness  for  the 
analyst  into  bitter  hostility  or  negative  transference,  put- 
ting an  end  to  the  treatment  for  the  time  being. 

Freud  considers  the  transference  as  the  projection  of 
infantile  fantasies  upon  the  analyst.  This  view  is  a  little 
too  simple,  and  does  not  explain  everything.  As  long  as 
the  transference  is  positive,  be  it  homosexual  or  hetero- 
sexual, one  may  recognise  in  it  an  infantile  erotic  char- 
acter. But  when  it  comes  to  a  negative  transference, 
that  is,  to  an  attitude  of  open  or  concealed  scepticism, 
criticism  or  hostility,  the  problem  is  more  involved.  Un- 
doubtedly the  determining  factor  in  that  case  is  the 
patient's  attitude  to  the  principle  of  authority,  symbolized 
by  the  father.  This  is  not  simply  an  infantile  desire  for 
insubordination,  but  the  cropping  out  of  ego  urgings  which 
prompt  the  individual  to  develop  himself  along  personal 
lines,  with  little  patience  for  outside  interference. 

The  real  meaning  of  the  transference  depends  on  what 
the  infantile  attitude  of  the  patient  was.  If  he  was  an 
intractable  child,  positive  transference  signifies  a  change 
for  the  better.  If  he  was  submissive,  the  positive  trans- 
ference means  a  dangerous  backsliding.  If  the  patient 
was  Intractable,  negative  transference  indicates  backslid- 

\  ing.     If  he  was  submissive,  that  negative  attitude  indi- 

;  cates,  on  the  contrary,  the  attaining  of  freedom  by  the 

i  patient,  who  becomes  himself. 

The  patient,  not  knowing  the  right  attitude  to  take  (for 
If  he  knew  it  he  would  not  be  in  need  of  analytic  treat- 
ment)  enters  a  relationship  to  the  analyst,  which  is  de- 

I  termined  by  comparison  and  analogies  with  his  infantile 


ai6  PSYCHOANALYaS 

experiences.  This  relation  (which  Christianity  has  set 
up  as  the  right  formula  for  human  relationships)  pro- 
vides an  easy  way  for  placing  the  patient  in  direct  contact 
with  the  world  through  some  understanding  person.  Re- 
establishing the  father-son  relation  would  not  be  the  solu- 
tion in  certain  cases.  It  would  simply  add  power  to  the 
forces  which  have  made  the  patient  a  neurotic.  "  The 
neurotic,"  Jung  writes,  "  is  not  ill  because  he  has  lost 
his  old  faith,  but  because  he  has  not  found  a  form  for  his 
finest  aspirations." 

Ferenczi  draws  a  very  illuminating  comparison  between 
hypnotism  and  transference. 

He  states  that  the  capacity  to  be  hypnotized  and  influ- 
enced by  suggestion  depends  on  the  possibility  of  a  trans- 
ference taking  place,  or,  more  openly  expressed,  on  the 
positive,  though  unconscious  sexual  attitude  which  the 
subject  assumes  to  the  hypnotist.  The  transference,  he  i 
says,  has  its  deepest  roots  in  repressed  parent  complexes. 

Success  in  hypnosis  is  very  variable,  ranging  from  50% 
to  96%,  according  to  the  various  authors.  All  authors 
agree  that  a  certain  physical  predisposition,  self-confi- 
dence, an  impressive,  fatherly  appearance  especially, 
(Svengali)  helps  considerably. 

Ferenczi  states  that  when  young  and  Ignorant,  he  was 
extremely  successful  as  a  hypnotist.  Later,  when  pro- 
ceeding more  carefully,  and  having  lost  the  self-confidence 
that  ignorance  gives,  he  failed  rather  frequently. 

There  are,  he  says,  two  means  of  hypnotizing  people: 
through  dread  and  through  love.  The  hypnotist  with 
the  impressive  appearance  reminds  the  subject  of  his 
father  austere  and  strong,  whom  he  wishes  to  imitate 
and  obey.     The  stroking  of  the  face  or  hands  is  prob- 


THE    TRANSFERENCE  227 

ably  a  gentle  reminder  of  the  mother  soothing  the  child 
and  putting  him  to  sleep. 

In  the  presence  of  the  hypnotist  "  the  child  that  slum- 
bers in  the  unconscious  of  the  adult  "  is  re-awakened. 

There  is  a  curious  resemblance  between  the  neurotic 
disturbance  which  takes  place  many  years  later  due  to  the 
father  or  mother  complex  and  the  automatic  acts  follow- 
ing hypnotic  commands.  In  both  cases  the  effect  is  un- 
known to  the  subject.  The  awakened  subject  does  not 
remember  anything  about  the  hypnotic  sleep,  and  the 
adult  has  forgotten  the  infantile  impressions,  the  repres- 
sions and  suppressions  due  to  obedience  to  the  parents'  or 
teachers'  authority. 

There  is,  then,  in  transference  a  distinct  form  of  hypno- 
tism probably  associated  with  infantile  memories. 

In  the  case  of  a  negative  transference  we  find  the 
same  elements. 

There  are  subjects  who  conceive  a  strong  distaste  for 
the  analyst.  And  in  many  cases  it  has  been  shown  that 
those  same  subjects  cannot  be  hypnotized. 

Inability  to  be  hypnotized,  according  to  Freud,  means 
an  unconscious  refusal  to  be  hypnotized.  The  fact  that 
some  neurotics  can  be  hypnotized  only  with  difficulty 
shows  that  they  do  not  wish  to  be  cured. 

The  antipathy  to  the  analyst  is  probably  created  by 
infantile  complexes.  A  rebellious  attitude  toward  the 
parents  will  probably  in  later  life  create  a  rebellious  atti- 
tude toward  the  man  who  becomes  a  substitute  for  the 
parent-image. 

Adler  says  that  special  attention  should  be  given  to  the 
patient's  tendency  to  depreciate  the  analyst  and  deprive 
him  of  his  worth.     The  patient  may  do  this  by  following 


228  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

the  ordinary  direction  which  his  disease  takes  and 
strengthening  it,  exaggerating  his  symptoms  or  creating 
new  ones,  and  trying  to  establish  tense  relations,  some- 
times of  friendship  or  love,  always  witli  the  intention  of 
mastering  the  analyst.  "  The  tactical  and  pedagogic  ex- 
pedients to  which  one  is  obliged  to  resort,  in  order  to 
break  down  such  attempts  on  the  part  of  the  patient,  be- 
come an  important  factor  in  analytic  therapy.  The  silent 
protest  of  the  neurotic  should  not,  however,  be  under- 
valued, and  one  should  be  on  the  lookout  for  it  to  the 
very  end  of  the  treatment,  laying  special  stress  upon  it 
toward  its  termination.  It  should  be  viewed  with  quiet, 
objective  composure,  as  a  mere  symptom  of  aggressive- 
ness, revealing  certain  predispositions  and  characteristics. 
The  destruction  of  the  false  perspective,  the  damming  up 
of  the  fictitious  influx  in  the  direction  of  the  masculine 
protest,  and  finally  a  right  understanding  of  the  super- 
stitious faith  in  an  abstract  guiding  line  and  the  apotheosis 
of  the  same,  are  the  levers  which  must  be  used  to  remove 
the  neurosis." 

Jung  warns  analysts  against  relying  too  much  on 
positive  transference  to  cure  patients.  "  If  the  doctor," 
he  writes,  "  makes  himself  very  pleasant,  he  buys  off 
from  the  patient  a  series  of  resistances  which  he  should 
have  overcome,  and  whose  overcoming  will  have  to  be 
gone  through  later  on.  Nothing  is  won  by  this  technique ; 
at  most  the  beginning  of  the  analysis  is  made  easier  for 
the  patient.  ...  A  stronger  motive  for  recovery,  also 
a  far  healthier  and  ethically  more  valuable  one,  consists 
in  the  patient's  thorough  insight  into  the  real  state  of 
affairs,  the  recognition  of  how  things  are  now  and  how 
they  ought  to  be.     The  man  of  any  sort  of  worth  will 


THE   TRANSFERENCE  229 

then  discern  that  he  can  hardly  sit  down  at  ease  in  the 
quagmire  of  his  neurosis." 

Dr.  Jelliffe  has  offered  a  very  novel  suggestion  for  the 
establishment  of  a  transference  in  cases  when  such  at- 
tempts appear  most  hopeless,  in  the  treatment  of  dementia 
praecox  or  manic  depressive  states.  Instead  of  the  usual 
transference,  patient  to  analyst,  he  would  establish  a  tri- 
angular relation  which  would  triumph  over  the  patient's 
indifference  or  hostility. 

"  The  specially  trained  nurse  or  attendant  being  pres- 
ent," he  writes,  "  would  allow  of  his  distribution  of  inter- 
est in  accordance  with  the  split  within  the  patient's  psychi- 
cal content.  The  discussion  might  begin  by  the  analysts 
addressing  only  this  third  person  and  not  the  patient,  thus 
gradually  permitting  the  extroversion  of  interest  at  lower 
intensities,  so  that  the  excessive  affect  has  opportunity, 
tentatively  and  gradually,  to  release  itself.  At  the  same 
time  it  would  distribute  its  force  instead  of  directing  it 
solely  toward  the  analyst." 


CHAPTER  XX 

RE-EDUCATION   AND    PROPHYLAXIS 

Assuming  that  the  cure  has  been  accomplished  and  the 
patient  feels  normal  again,  what  shall  the  next  step  be? 

The  usual  medical  practitioner,  having  piloted  a 
patient  safely  through  a  severe  physical  trial,  sickness  or 
operation,  does  not  abandon  him  to  his  devices  after  dis- 
charging him  as  cured. 

He  generally  considers  it  his  duty  to  examine  him  care- 
fully at  various  intervals,  and  to  give  him  advice  calcu- 
lated to  make  a  recurrence  of  his  trouble  unlikely. 

Supervision  of  the  subject  by  the  analyst  after  the 
mental  disturbance  has  been  removed  is  not  only  a  meas- 
ure of  precaution  but  actually  a  part  of  the  treatment. 

I  sum  up  the  advice  given  by  White  in  that  connection 
in  his  "  Outlines  of  Psychiatry." 

"  In  neurasthenia,  the  problem  is  to  get  the  patient 
out  of  himself  and  into  healthy  touch  with  the  world  of 
reality.  This  can  be  done  only  by  awakening  new  in- 
terests and  training  him  gradually  In  healthy  viewpoints 
and  a  continuity  of  effort  in  endeavoring  to  establish  the 
habit  of  work." 

'*  In  obsessions  and  phobias,  a  rational  psychotherapy 

is  indicated.     This  should  include  a  careful  regulation  of 

the  mental  life  within  the  powers  of  the  individual,   a 

getting  away  from  old  and  vicious  habits  of  thought  by 

330 


RE-EDUCATION   AND   PROPHYLAXIS  23 1 

being  shown  their  error,  but  better,  by  being  directed  into 
new  channels.  The  treatment  involves  a  re-education 
and  is  quite  as  delicate  and  skillful  a  matter  as  the  re- 
education of  the  muscular  habits  in  ticqueurs." 

In  other  words,  the  task,  of  the  analyst  is  not  by  any 
means  completed  when  he  has  allowed  the  neurotic  to 
peer  freely  into  his  own  unconscious.  After  freeing  from 
his  chains  a  prisoner  whose  legs  have  become  weak  from 
disuse,  we  must  lead  his  first  steps  carefully  and  point 
to  him  the  roads  which  will  present  the  fewest  pitfalls. 

Unless  the  analyst  re-educates  his  patients,  his  work  is 
almost  as  barren  as  that  of  the  hypnotist  who,  after  rid- 
ding a  subject  of  a  certain  symptom,  prepares  him  in  no 
way  to  resist  the  next  onset  of  the  same  symptom. 

All  the  students  of  neuroses  agree  that  the  majority 
of  neurotics  have  a  rather  narrow  horizon  and  a  mentality 
curiously  undeveloped  in  certain  directions. 

Ignorance  and  fear  usually  go  together.  I  might  say 
that  the  mental  advance  due  to  civilization  can  be  com- 
puted by  the  fears  it  has  killed:  Fear  of  misunderstood 
physical  phenomena,  fear  of  occult  influences,  fear  of 
ghosts  of  various  kinds,  fear  of  one's  unconscious.  The 
fear  of  nothing  intangible  is  probably  the  beginning  of 
wisdom,  provided  that  indifference  is  spontaneous,  not 
due  to  wilful  repressions  of  our  self-protection  urge. 

The  analyzed  subject  has  been  freed  of  one  of  several 
fears,  but  it  may  be  beset  by  other  fears  at  other  times. 

The  analyst  must  therefore  use  the  authority  he  has 
gained  through  transference  to  develop  in  his  subject  that 
desire  to  shine,  to  be  agreeable,  which  is  at  times  one  of 
the  disturbing  elements  of  the  transference. 

The  analyst,  who  must  be  a  man  of  well  rounded  educa- 


232  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

tlon,  and  of  broad  interests  and  views,  must  become  an 
educator. 

We  must,  Jelliffe  says,  offer  to  the  patient  "  something 
that  his  own  particular  interest  and  striving  from  within 
will  naturally  take  to  itself  and  appropriate  as  a  suf- 
ficiently familiar  pathway  to  the  external  world  and  its 
wholesome  interests.  .  .  .  The  compulsive  neurotic  who 
has  vacillated  helplessly  for  decades  between  strongly  op- 
posing tendencies,  crassly  egoistic  on  the  one  hand  and 
painfully  self-corrective  on  the  other,  should  have  some- 
thing now  about  which  he  has  really  to  think.  Science, 
the  exact  sciences  of  nature  or  the  facts  of  human  history 
in  the  cultural  sciences,  will  set  him  thinking  toward 
definite  conclusions.  He  will  learn  ...  a  new  progres- 
sive handling  of  mental  material.  He  will  no  longer 
merely  grub  about  in  his  thought  but  use  it  to  some  pur- 
pose." 

Kempf  suggests  a  physical  as  well  as  a  mental  re-educa- 
tion. "An  effort  should  be  made,"  he  writes,  "  to  use 
the  transfer  in  order  to  influence  the  patient  to  become 
socially  constructive  in  some  manner.  This  is  absolutely 
imperative  in  order  to  fulfill  the  mission  in  which  his 
parents  failed.  The  choice  of  method  should  be  left  most 
carefully  to  the  patient  but  he  should  not  be  allowed  to 
avoid  it.  Furthermore  the  psychoanalysis  should  be  ac- 
companied by  vigorous  indulgence  in  social  play  of  a 
type  requiring  exposure  of  functional  and  organic  in- 
feriorities to  more  or  less  critical  evaluation  by  competi- 
tors. This  tends  to  make  the  individual  immune  to  fear 
of  failure  or  inferiority  and  will  prevent  him  from  seek- 
ing eccentric  compensation,  regression  or  seclusive  adapta- 
tions. 


RE-EDUCATION   AND   PROPHYLAXIS  233 

"  The  psychoanalytic  procedure  consists  essentially  In 
bringing  about  an  autonomic-affective  readjustment  that 
will  be  comfortable  as  well  as  socially  constructive.  This 
depends  largely  upon  the  ego  permitting  the  repressed 
cravings  to  cause  awareness  of  their  presence  and  needs, 
and  finding  a  more  practical,  healthful,  intelligent,  less 
fearful  course  of  adjustment." 

A  great  deal  of  introversion  Is  created  by  certain  obses- 
sions and  the  re-education  must  correct  that  condition 
and  replace  it  by  a  normal  degree  of  extroversion.  A 
subject  of  mine  who  in  childhood  had  suffered  from  a 
disfiguring  disease  but  had  outgrown  it  completely  and  is 
now  a  strong,  healthy  and  handsome  man,  was  at  times 
victimized  by  his  *'  reminiscences,"  and  imagined  that  peo- 
ple were  looking  strangely  at  his  head.  Going  about 
with  a  scared  look  and  a  forbidding  mien,  he  could  detect 
a  hostile  intent  in  the  most  innocent  glances.  The  small 
boy  he  once  was  and  whose  suppurating  head  caused  him 
no  end  of  discomfort  and  humiliation  was  still  perform- 
ing defence  actions  which  should  have  ceased  20  years 
before. 

The  subject  had  become  introverted  to  an  abnormal 
degree,  shunning  all  gatherings,  avoiding  men  and  women, 
and  masturbating.  After  he  had  gained  full  insight  into 
the  fallacious  character  of  his  delusion  the  problem  was 
to  map  out  for  him  a  program  of  interesting,  pleasant, 
useful,  social  activities,  which  would  enable  him  to  resume 
contact  with  his  environment.  The  sluggish,  sullen  In- 
trovert has  now  developed  a  great  fondness  for  dancing, 
has  joined  a  class  in  public  speaking  and  is  preparing  him- 
self at  a  night-school  for  an  Interesting  profession. 

The  activities  in  which  the  cured  neurotic  must  take 


234  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

part  have  to  be  pleasant  and  must  not  expose  him  to  a 
discouraging  defeat. 

The  idea  that  unpleasant  tasks  develop  our  will-power 
is  as  absurd  as  the  old  belief  that  medicines  with  a  dis- 
gusting taste  are  more  efficient,  although  they  begin  by 
making  the  patient  sick  with  nausea.  The  re-education 
of  neurotics,  like  the  education  of  children,  should  not  be 
based  on  compulsion  on  the  part  of  the  teacher,  but  on 
the  pupil's  desire,  properly  awakened,  to  acquire  knowl- 
edge. 

The  human  organism  is  meant  for  pleasure,  not  for 
suffering,  for  Interesting,  not  for  consciously  irksome 
activities. 

Cannon's  observations  leave  little  doubt  that  to  every 
form  of  suffering,  to  every  unpleasant  stimulus,  corre- 
sponds a  decrease  of  the  body's  natural,  beneficial  activi- 
ties, an  effort  to  re-establish  a  pleasant,  normal  status, 
which  is  waste  of  energy. 

Psychoanalysis  has  occupied  itself  mainly  with  the  cure 
of  mental  abnormality  but  it  should  begin  to  map  out 
definite  prophylactic  activities.  This  would  Include  a  re- 
vision of  educational  methods  from  the  analytic  point  of 
view,  and  a  general  training  of  the  masses  in  self-analysis. 
Kven  as  the  aim  of  medicine  is  to  make  physicians  un- 
necessary, the  aim  of  psychoanalysis  is  to  make  analysts 
useless. 

The  old-fashioned  educator  who  Is  fond  of  saying  that 
there  is  no  royal  road  to  learning,  and  that  the  study  of 
tedious  subjects  constitutes  a  good  mental  discipline,  must 
be  held  responsible  for  a  great  number  of  mental  ab- 
normalities.    Very  few  children  will  ever  be  able  to  uti- 


RE-EDUCATION   AND    PROPHYLAXIS  235 

llze  whatever  knowledge  of  Latin,  Greek  and  algebra 
they  acquire  In  school.  They  feel  It  obscurely,  and  study 
those  subjects  as  they  take  bitter  medicine,  by  compulsion. 
But  they  would  lend  themselves  more  readily  to  attempts 
at  teaching  them  Italian,  modern  Russian  or  Japanese 
or  automobile  repairing,  which  would  probably  develop 
their  minds  more  rationally  than  a  study  of  dead  lan- 
guages. 

Doing  unpleasant  things,  which  serve  no  practical  end, 
may  train  our  minds,  but  It  trains  them  to  assume  ab- 
normal attitudes,  and  the  unavoidable  rebound  Is  naturally 
disastrous  In  certain  cases. 

What  does  education  do  to  secure  an  expression  for 
our  pleasure  and  our  ego  urges?  Our  ear  Is  to  be 
trained  in  enjoying  music,  let  us  say.  That  means  that 
a  naturally  restless  child  shall  be  compelled  to  memorize 
tedious  technical  details  of  musical  notation  and  to  per- 
form on  some  instrument  exercises  lacking  In  interest  and 
charm.     The  same  applies  to  other  arts-,,^ 

Love  of  art  and  desire  for  artistic  expression  may  sur- 
vive that  form  of  torture  but  cannot  by  any  chance  be 
encouraged  or  promoted  thereby.  The  average  child's 
ears,  his  eyes,  his  nose,  his  hands  are  not  trained  In  seek- 
ing positive  enjoyment. 

Mass  education,  which  aims  at  turning  out  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  Identical  human  beings,  represses  cruelly 
every  outcropping  of  the  child's  ego  and  teaches  him  to 
conceal  his  individuality  under  stereotyped  formulas  and 
to  hide  many  feelings  under  an  artificial  social  mask. 

Too  often,  then,  the  ardent  child,  fully  fitted  for  a  com- 
plete life,  but  confronted  at  every  step  by  a  thousand 


236  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

forms  of  repression,  becomes  a  slave  to  self-gratification, 
the  only  form  of  expression  for  his  urges  which  his  envir- 
onment cannot  repress. 

His  untrained  senses  soon  fall  under  the  thraldom  of 
that  obsession;  whatever  he  sees  is  easily  transformed 
into  a  sexual  stimulus;  what  he  hears  acquires  a  sexual 
meaning;  odors,  tastes,  contacts  become  laden  with  a 
sexual  import. 

In  other  words,  if  a  large  steam  generator  is  discon- 
nected from  the  motors  it  should  supply  and  all  the  safety- 
valves  but  one  have  been  shut,  the  steam  will  use  the 
only  available  outlet,  produce  a  deafening  sound  while 
escaping,  and  endow  that  outlet  with  an  importance  abso- 
lutely out  of  keeping  with  the  role  which  the  designer 
of  the  boiler  assigned  to  it  in  his  plans. 

Thus  the  "  tyranny  of  sex  "  imposes  itself  upon  many 
human  beings. 

Greek  chroniclers  tell  us  that,  at  one  of  the  Hellenic 
festivals,  Phryne,  Praxiteles'  favorite  model,  was  to  im- 
personate Aphrodite  rising  from  the  waves.  When  she 
stepped  into  the  sea,  naked  and  with  her  golden  hair  un- 
bound, a  religious  silence,  we  are  told,  descended  upon 
the  multitude.   .   .   . 

The  same  scene  enacted  at  Coney  Island  by  Annette 
Kellerman  or  Kitty  Gordon  would  produce  quite  a  dif- 
ferent impression. 

The  splendid  men,  who  from  all  parts  of  Greece 
flocked  to  the  Corinthian  or  Olympic  festivals,  were  well 
rounded  specimens  of  humanity.  The  perfect  man  in 
those  days  would  compose  a  poem,  sing  it  and  accompany 
himself  on  the  lyre,  as  well  as  run,  wrestle  and  throw 
the  discus.     They  were  too  virile  not  to  appreciate  the 


RE-EDUCATION   AND    PROPHYLAXIS  237 

splendid  female  Phryne  was,  but  the  religious  silence 
mentioned  by  the  chronicler  was  evidence  that  other  con- 
siderations of  an  aesthetic  and  enjoyable  order  were  oc- 
cupying their  minds  at  the  time. 

They  were  not  the  slaves  of  any  sexual  obsession. 

Some  day,  mankind  may  revert  to  that  perfect  nor- 
mality. 

Children  will  then  receive  the  training  which  will  make 
them  many-sided,  open  to  many  pleasant  stimuli  and 
therefore  normal. 

Instead  of  hideous,  boresome  "  music  lessons,"  they 
may  be  made  to  listen  to  good  music  under  the  leadership 
of  gifted,  enthusiastic  musical  guides,  whose  apprecia- 
tion of  masterpieces  will  prove  Infectious.  After  this 
some  of  them  will  prove  Indifferent  and  should  not  be 
compelled  to  waste  time  or  energy  on  a  distasteful  sub- 
ject; others  will  develop  a  craving  for  reproducing  the 
pleasant  combinations  of  sounds  with  which  they  have 
become  familiar  and  will  seek  technical  training;  others 
will  yield  to  the  desire  to  produce  themselves  similar  com- 
binations of  sounds  and  will  be  only  too  willing  to  be  In- 
structed in  musical  composition. 

The  same  applies  to  all  the  arts. 

Children  could  be  trained  in  developing  their  sense  of 
sight  by  admiring  the  wonderful  things  of  which  nature 
is  full,  from  a  beautiful  sunset  to  a  dramatic  electrical 
storm,  from  the  mountains  to  the  starlit  skies. 

Aesthetic  appreciation  of  the  human  body,  such  as  the 
Greeks  evinced,  should  be  revived  and  would  produce 
healthier  bodies  than  those  we  see  on  ocean  beaches,  and 
which  are  the  prisons  of  rather  miserable  minds. 

The  child's  sense  of  smell  could  be  trained  through 


238  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

walks  In  parks  and  forests  and  along  the  sea-shore,  his 
sense  of  touch  through  modeling  clay  and  handling  repro- 
ductions of  ancient  vases,  etc.   .   .   . 

If  all  our  senses  were  equally  trained  to  yield  manifold 
sensations  of  pleasure,  there  would  be  fewer  of  the  un- 
fortunate human  beings  whose  only  gratification  consists 
in  gulping  exaggerated  amounts  of  food  or  drink,  or  in- 
dulging in  solitary  vice. 

Lack  of  mental  development  makes  life  terribly  mo- 
notonous and  compels  many  human  beings  to  waste  their 
energy  in  distasteful  occupations. 

The  lazy  and  the  idle  are  too  frequently  persons  who 
have  been  trained  for  one  kind  of  work  for  which,  how- 
ever, they  are  not  physically  or  mentally  fitted,  and  who 
feel  that  such  work  is  not  worth  doing. 

Every  one  of  us  has  ability  in  some  direction,  and  we 
might  repeat  here  Jung's  saying  that  what  struck  him 
most  when  analyzing  people  was  the  enormous  amount 
of  artistic  ability,  repressed  or  undeveloped,  that  he  found 
in  his  patients,  j^rtlstic  ability  is  the  ability  to  express 
oneself,  to  relieve  the  pressure  of  the  urges.  In  a  social 
way,  beneficial  both  to  the  individual  and  to  his  environ- 
ment: 

The  analyst  may  fulfill  the  mission  which  Socrates  as- 
signed to  the  philosopher,  and  act  as  an  intellectual  mid- 
wife, helping  minds  to  give  forth  all  the  possibilities  with 
which  they  are  pregnant. 

The  man  trained  rationally  will  not  have  to  "  sub- 
limate "  any  urges.  If  all  his  life  energies,  are  properly 
distributed  and  made  to  flow  freely  through  all  the  natural 
channels,  none  of  them  is  likely  to  overwhelm  the  others, 


RE-EDUCATION   AND    PROPHYLAXIS  239 

to  dominate  the  individual's  life  and  to  thwart  his  mental 
operations. 

Self-analysis,  when  made  as  common  as  the  comb  or 
the  toothbrush,  will  prevent  much  useless  strife  and  suf- 
fering. 

Married  couples  would  derive  much  comfort  from  a 
knowledge,  however  superficial,  of  psychoanalytic  princi- 
ples. Unconscious  attitudes  misunderstood  by  one  of 
the  partners  as  conscious  and  wilful,  would  excite  less 
indignation  and  cause  less  suffering  if  they  were  clearly 
recognized  as  products  of  the  unconscious.  Husbands 
and  wives,  realizing  what  their  partner's  unconscious 
cravings  demand,  might  on  the  other  hand  adopt  attitudes 
which  would  gratify  easily  those  unconscious  cravings. 
The  process  of  unification  of  reactions  between  husband 
and  wife,  mentioned  by  Jung,  and  which  takes  years  to 
accomplish,  accompanied  at  times  by  intense  friction  and 
resistance,  might  be  hastened  if  the  intended  partners 
were  made  conscious  of  their  probable  sources  of  mutual 
hostility. 

Extreme  frankness,  such  as  seldom  exists  in  our  \ 
modern  civilization  between  husband  and  wife,  would  in  -■ 
many  cases  prevent  a  neurosis.  / 

Jung  says  that  a  neurose  contains  the  counter-argu- 
ment against  the  relationship  of  the  patient  to  the  person 
with  whom  he  is  most  intimately  connected.  If  the  hus- 
band develops  a  neurose.  It  means  that  he  has  tendencies 
that  diverge  from  his  wife's  and  if  the  wife  becomes  a 
neurotic  It  means  that  her  tendencies  are  opposed  to  her 
husband's. 

How  many  times  we  could  analyze  away  many  of  the 


240  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

obscure  feelings  of  hostility  we  experience  toward  per- 
fectly harmless  persons  whose  only  crime  is  that  they 
remind  us  unconsciously  of  some  other  person  who  once 
frightened  or  harmed  us! 

We  could  avoid  very  often  the  unpleasant  breakdown 
which  follows  a  useless  display  of  bravery  or  of  indif- 
ference in  a  crisis. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE    NEW   ETHICS 

Stripped  of  their  mystical  phraseology,  the  various 
systems  of  ethics  propounded  by  religious  or  lay  bodies 
have  only  one  aim :  To  offer  to  human  beings  one  code  of 
social  behavior  which  will  minimize  the  number  of  colli- 
sions among  them. 

Both  are  based  upon  the  assumption  that  a  certain 
amount  of  renunciation  is  "  good."  Both  presuppose  the 
acceptance  of  a  line  of  cleavage  between  what  is  pleasing 
to  the  deity  and  what  is  not  pleasing,  or  between  what 
is  high  and  what  is  low. 

Religious  ethics  and  ethical  culturism  have  reached  the 
same  conclusions,  most  of  which,  I  hasten  to  add,  are  per- 
fectly legitimate,  through  a  purely  empirical  method. 
They  bid  man  to  do  certain  things  which  in  the  course 
of  the  world's  life  have  been  found  to  be  generally  ad- 
vantageous to  the  race. 

Their  fatal  weakness,  however,  is  the  fact  that  they 
do  not  offer  acceptable  reasons  for  their  pronounce- 
ments. Granted  an  unshakable  faith  in  some  deity  and 
in  its  prophets,  any  code  of  ethics  based  upon  the  com- 
mands of  that  deity  will  be  easily  applied  without  any 
extraneous  help.  Granted  an  absolute  confidence  in 
some  ethical  leader,  his  followers  will  willingly  adhere 
to  his  classification  of  the  lower  and  higher  instincts, 
motives  and  deeds. 

The   continual   development   of   the   ego   urge   from 

241 


242  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

century  to  century,  however,  has  created  an  attitude  of 
mind  which  is  not  favorable  to  the  autocratic  domina- 
tion of  prophets  and  leaders. 

When  every  man  assumes,  with  more  or  less  justifica- 
tion, that  his  opinion  is  probably  as  good  as  that  of  any 
other  man,  the  other  man,  prophet  or  ethical  leader,  is 
called  upon  to  present  proof  of  the  justness  of  his  con- 
tention. Growing  egotism  is  substituting  more  and  more 
rapidly  the  rational  for  the  emotional  appeal. 

The  conscious  egotist  whose  ego  urge  tends  to  make 
him  constantly  seek  a  new  and  higher  level,  is  not  over- 
anxious to  be  "  uplifted  "  by  anyone.  If  someone,  how- 
ever, presents  to  him  convincing  reasons  of  a  scientific 
nature  for  a  mode  of  behavior  promoting  his  ego's  prog- 
ress and  rise,  he  will  undoubtedly  secure  a  hearing. 

Ethics,  like  power,  are  no  longer  to  descend  from 
above  but  to  rise  from  below. 

Before  proceeding  any  further  we  must  touch  upon 
the  question  of  free  will,  which  in  ethics  is  paramount. 
A  belief  in  absolute  determinism  would  make  any  ethical 
discussion  useless  if  not  ridiculous. 

How  much  freedom  of  choice  do  we  possess? 

Psychoanalysis  is  compelled  to  register  two  contra- 
dictory observations :  the  growing  amount  of  evidence  in 
favor  of  psychic  determinism  and  the  decrease  of  faith  in 
whatever  would  restrict  the  field  of  our  free  will. 

Fatalism,  the  will  of  God,  the  hand  of  destiny  are  be- 
coming more  and  more  figures  of  speech  rather  than  the 
expression  of  any  human  belief.  The  more  the  com- 
plexity of  modern  life  compels  us  to  follow  a  rigid  form 
of  behavior,  the  more  our  ego  will  seek  compensation  in 
a  belief  in  unlimited  freedom  of  choice. 


THE   NEW   ETHICS  243 

On  the  other  hand,  the  study  of  psychic  phenomena 
Is  conducive  to  a  profound  scepticism  as  to  chance  and 
conscious  choice. 

The  testimony  of  our  consciousness  Is  of  no  value  what- 
ever, as  the  study  of  post-hypnotic  reasoning  abundantly 
proves.  The  subject  carrying  out  a  definite  command  of 
the  hypnotizer  is  convinced  of  his  freedom  of  choice  and 
can  always  give  good  reasons  for  doing  what  he  cannot 
help  doing  in  his  post-hypnotic  thraldom. 

The  studies  in  heliotropism  and  phototropism  made 
recently  by  Jacques  Loeb  and  Harold  Wastenays  make 
us  suspect  that  the  human  world  may  not  be  free  from 
the  chemical  determinism  which  seems  to  rule  the  animal 
world.  When  we  remember  that  the  mere  fact  of  sexual 
excitement  causes  male  and  female  bees  to  lose  entirely 
their  freedom  of  direction  and  to  fly  in  a  direct  line 
toward  the  sun  until  the  sexual  act  Is  completed,  when 
we  think  that  a  few  drops  of  some  acid  will  compel  cer- 
tain crustaceans  stubbornly  to  face  the  source  of  light  and 
die  of  starvation  even  when  plentiful  food  is  heaped  up 
close  to  them  In  the  opposite  direction,  that  the  larvae 
of  caterpillars  are  compelled  by  their  heliotropism  to 
climb  to  the  topmost  twig  of  a  tree,  there  to  die  unless 
they  secure  on  the  way  up  a  mouthful  of  green  leaf  which 
returns  to  them  their  freedom  of  choice,  we  may  well 
wonder  to  what  extent  the  same  phenomena  affect  un- 
consciously our  freedom  of  choice. 

Le  Dantec  calls  our  attention  to  storms,  which,  while 
giving  the  Impression  of  "  individuaHty "  and  "  free- 
dom," are  nevertheless  quite  as  completely  determined 
by  physical  conditions  as  any  other  atmospheric  phe- 
nomena. 


244  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

A  certain  amount  of  negative  freedom  seems  to  exist 
in  the  world  of  urges.  We  may  postpone  the  satisfac- 
tion of  our  appetite,  we  may  deny  ourselves  sexual  satis- 
faction, we  may  repress  anger,  but  we  may  not,  regard- 
less of  our  efforts  in  that  direction,  arouse  our  desire 
for  food  unless  our  stomach  is  empty,  nor  feel  sexual 
desire  unless  a  likely  physical  or  mental  stimulus  is  pres- 
ent, nor  can  we  in  a  normal  state  of  mind  feel  anger 
without  a  definite  conscious  cause. 

Our  limited  freedom  would  then  be  conditioned  by  a 
knowledge  of  the  various  forces  that  struggle  for  ex- 
pression in  ourselves,  and  of  the  various  roads  they  might 
follow  without  coming  into  conflict  with  the  same  forces 
expressing  themselves  in  other  human  beings. 

We  shall  agree  with  Nietzsche  that  the  most  desirable 
human  quality  in  this  case  is  "  elasticity."  Adaptability 
is  too  passive  a  word.  Besides  the  very  inferior  individ- 
ual that  cannot  adapt  itself  and  dies  off,  and  the  average 
individual  that  adapts  itself  and  survives,  we  must  con- 

('sider  the  type  that  adapts  its  environment  and  makes  it 
easier  for  others  to  live  in  It:  the  man  who  kills  a  mos- 
quito, the  man  who  screens  off  his  house,  and  the  man 
who  drains  the  swamps.  Elasticity  applies  to  the  last 
type  more  than  adaptability  and  it  may  be  that  only  in 
this  last  type  do  we  find  a  real  amount  of  freedom,  both 
negative  and  positive. 

This  type  Is  precisely  the  one  who  will  insist  on  sci- 
entific reasons  and  not  on  sentimental  or  mystical  ones. 

Quotations  from  Pasteur's,  Edison's  or  Ehrllch's  writ- 
ings will  Impress  him  more  than  quotations  from  the  Old 
or  the  New  Testament,  the  Koran,  the  Talmud  or  Lao 
Tse's  Tao. 


THE   NEW   ETHICS  245 

In  other  words  we  no  longer  trust  the  ethical  code 
that  says  to  us:  "  Thou  shalt  not  touch  a  live  wire;  I  am 
the  Lord,"  or  "  Touching  a  live  wire  is  unethical,  or 
low,"  but  the  ethical  code  that  will  state  that  touching  a 
live  wire  will  allow  a  current  to  go  through  one's  body 
which  will  cause  intense  pain,  physical  damage  and  prob- 
ably death. 

Any  system  of  ethics  going  no  further,  however,  would 
be  as  unsatisfactory  to  intelligent  human  beings  as,  for 
instance,  the  so-called  legal  ethics  or  medical  ethics. 

It  is  legally  ethical  to  increase  out  of  proportion  the 
salaries  of  corporation  officers  so  as  to  conceal  the  taxable 
surplus  income.  A  physician  may  allow  the  innocent 
marriage  partner  of  a  syphilitic  to  remain  in  ignorance 
of  the  sick  partner's  condition. 

In  other  words,  ethics  whose  only  duty  would  be  "  to 
keep  out  of  trouble,"  would  be  simply  a  code  of  con- 
venience, shallow  and  near-sighted. 

The  new  ethics  must  take  into  account  the  constant 
inter-relationship  that  binds  every  human  being  to  the 
entire  social  body,  much  as  every  cell  of  the  organism 
functions  in  accord  with  the  rest  of  the  organism,  its 
health  depending  upon  that  of  the  body  and  the  body's 
health  depending  on  the  health  of  all  the  individual  cells. 

When  that  relation  is  clearly  seen,  human  behavior 
will  be  a  relatively  simple  mental  calculation,  instead  of 
the  torturing  problem  it  presents  for  the  less  robust  minds 
from  the  ranks  of  whom  neurotics  are  recruited.  It  has 
been  pointed  out  a  thousand  times,  but  it  bears  repetition, 
that  neurotics  are  generally  very  "  ethical  "  persons,  who, 
in  the  struggle  against  their  instincts,  go  down  to  defeat. 
When  we  bear  in  mind  the  multiplicity  of  unproved  ethi- 


246  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

cal  notions,  the  conflict  of  ethical  creeds,  the  general  hy- 
pocrisy which  is  back  of  the  notion  of  sin,  we  can  easily 
imagine  how  a  weakened  mind  may  be  overwhelmed  in- 
stead of  strengthened  by  all  those  conflicting  beliefs. 

Uncertainty  is  the  worst  mental  poison.  Ellen  Key 
suffered  cruelly  from  it  in  her  youth  and  finally  attempted 
to  compel  God  to  reveal  His  existence  by  insulting  Him 
publicly.  Most  people,  however,  content  themselves  with 
"  taking  chances." 

Taking  a  chance  on  escaping  God's  punishing  hand  and 
stealing  goods  in  the  hope  that  no  one  will  see  us  is  very 
much  the  same  thing  and  is  due  to  the  same  mental  oper- 
ation. If,  in  every  emergency,  v/e  had  as  definite  reasons 
for  doing  or  not  doing  a  certain  thing  as  an  electrician 
has  for  not  handling  a  live  wire  without  rubber  gloves, 
we  would  never  take  chances.  Taking  chances  is  simply 
an  evidence  of  ignorance. 

In  other  words,  conduct  will  be  the  result  of  a  debate 
between  our  ego  and  sex  urges,  pushing  us  ahead  on  the 
road  of  evolution,  and  our  safety  urge  which  is  trying 
to  minimize  the  waste  of  material  and  motion  charac- 
teristic of  most  of  nature's  processes. 

In  neurosis  we  have  observed  two  pre-eminent  facts : 

( 1 )  The  neurotic  is  ignorant  of  some  important  un- 
conscious factor. 

(2)  The  neurotic  is  tortured  by  one  autocratic  instinct. 
The  neurotic  is  generally  least  informed  about  his  ego 

urge  and  his  sex  urge.  Both  are  subjected  to  a  very 
hypocritical  censorship  by  our  social  system,  but,  of  the 
two,  the  sex  urge  is  probably  the  most  generally  lied 
about. 

Epictetus   once   said   that   ethics  was   a   question   of 


THE   NEW   ETHICS  247 

dealing  wisely  with  the  phenomena  of  existence.  How 
can  we  deal  wisely  with  what  we  do  not  know?  The 
words  "  ego  "  and  "  egotist  "  have  been  given  by  hypo- 
crites a  very  unpleasant  connotation.  The  ego  urge,  the 
source  of  discontent  and  progress,  is  suspected  by  the 
stolid,  unimaginative  masses  of  neophobiacs  who  consti- 
tute the  greater  part  of  mankind,  who  cling  to  estab- 
lished things  because  they  lack  the  vision  that  would 
show  them  the  possibility  of  change. 

The  ego  urge,  denied  an  outlet,  expresses  itself,  then, 
in  useless,  wasteful  "  chance  "  actions  which  make  up  the 
woof  of  our  daily  life.  Or  it  may  cause  a  psychopatho- 
logical  attack  of  megalomania,  persecution  mania  and 
other  hallucinations,  not  to  mention  crime. 

We  are  quite  as  ashamed  of  our  ego  urge  as  we  are  of 
our  sex  and  it  is  with  the  most  absurdly  apologetic  or  cen- 
sorious tone  that  we  mention  our  ego  urge  or  that  of 
others.  In  fact,  our  attitude  places  upon  all  its  mani- 
festations an  abnormal  complexion. 

The  discontented  man  is  the  hope  of  the  world.  The 
world,  unwilling  or  unable  to  recognize  that  fact,  calls 
him  a  subversive  person,  a  crank,  an  embittered  soul. 

He  himself  generally  conceals  that  tendency  of  his  and, 
instead  of  engaging  in  positive  endeavor,  often  satisfies 
his  unconscious  cravings  by  disparaging  others,  being 
hostile,  crabbed,  etc. 

Humility  may  conceal  a  violent  ego  just  as  prudery  is 
the  usual  cloak  for  unbridled  sexual  cravings. 

"  We  are  what  we  are,"  Freud  once  said  to  Putnam, 
"  because  we  have  been  what  we  have  been.  .  .  .  And 
what  is  needed  to  solve  the  problem  of  human  life  and 
motives  is  not  moral  estimates  but  more  knowledge." 


248  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Ethics  based  upon  religious  revelation  are  prone  to 
fear  knowledge.  A  curse  was  placed  upon  partaking  of 
the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  science  in  the  Earthly  Paradise  and 
Mephistopheles,  the  archfiend,  is  generally  represented 
as  possessed  of  the  highest  intelligence. 

This  attitude  still  dominates  a  part  of  the  scientific 
world. 

Opponents  of  psychoanalysis  are  often  heard  basing 
their  objections  on  the  fact  that  analysis  "  stirs  up  "  too 
many  unconscious  things  which  should  not  be  made  con- 
scious. 

It  is  especially  to  knowledge  of  sex  facts  that  the 
greatest  ethical  opposition  manifests  itself.  The  mere 
statement  of  certain  physiological  facts  is  held  dangerous 
in  certain  quarters. 

Parents  refuse  to  enlighten  their  children  in  order  to 
"  keep  their  minds  pure."  The  result  is  that  children 
derive  their  information  about  sex  matters  from  ignorant 
little  playmates  or  perverse  adults,  who  impart  to  them 
either  filthy  or  romantic  notions,  both  equally  dangerous. 

For   children   seeking  enlightenment   on   that   subject 
cannot  safely  be  refused,  as  the  analyses  of  little  Hans, 
little  Anna  and  little  Arpad  by  Freud,  Jung  and  Ferenczi 
prove  abundantly. 
-     Sex  romance  is  a  poisonous  element  in  human  life. 

What  its  results  may  be  is  well  illustrated  by  one  of 
the  chapters  in  Upton  Sinclair's  "  Love's  Pilgrimage,"  in 
which  two  sexually  ignorant  lovers  start  on  a  career  of 
mental  and  physical  disharmony  which  leads  to  much  suf- 
fering. 

Romance  is  unethical.  By  covering  the  abyss  with 
flowers,  by  refusing  to  place  red  lights  on  obstructions  at 


THE   NEW   ETHICS  249 

night,  it  causes  infinite  waste  of  mental  and  physical 
material. 

Reality,  well  understood,  with  its  infinite  possibilities, 
would  be  a  beneficial  substitute  for  romance.  If  people 
realized  the  thrilling  possibilities  of  chemistry  or  engineer- 
ing, they  could  derive  the  same  mental  stimulation  which 
romance,  based  on  ignorance,  gives  them  now.  The  ro- 
mance of  reality  would  intoxicate  them  pleasantly  and 
spur  them  to  actual  achievement  of  social  value. 

The  romance  of  reality  would  be  based  on  truth. 
After  a  child's  sexual  investigations  have  proved  to  him 
that  his  parents  and  teachers  are  in  one  respect  unmiti- 
gated liars,  how  can  those  parents  and  teachers  hope  that 
their  word  will  carry  conviction  on  subjects  whose  con- 
crete evidence  cannot  be  produced  when  needed? 

As  Holt  says,  a  ten-year-old  child  will  be  easily  con- 
vinced by  one  trial  that  his  parents  were  truthful  when 
discouraging  overindulgence  in  doughnuts.  But  the  con- 
sequences of  smoking,  for  instance,  are  so  deferred  that 
the  child  will  have  to  take  his  father's  word  for  them. 
If  Johnnie's  father  lied  to  him,  Johnnie  will  reach  the  con- 
clusion that  "  father  says  "  rather  than  "  tobacco  is  " 
injurious. 

We  have  shown  in  the  preceding  chapter  how  sexual 
urgings  could  be  prevented  from  assuming  an  exaggerated 
importance  in  the  individual's  life.  In  the  chapter  on 
"  Chance  Actions  "  we  have  reviewed  many  phenomena, 
some  of  them  of  a  most  unpleasant  type,  which  compen- 
sate for  the  repression  to  which  our  environment  unwisely 
submits  our  ego  urge.  We  have  seen  that  its  total  re- 
pression by  confinement  in  jail,  especially  solitary  confine- 
ment, is  the  surest  way  to  produce  distressing  psychoses. 


250  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Useless  repression  of  the  ego  urge  Is  unethical.  The 
legions  of  weak  men  and  women  who  are  slaves  to  fashion 
and  who  are  terrorized  by  fear  of  business  or  social 
ostracism  Into  abandoning  every  desire  they  might  possess 
in  the  matter  of  personal  adornment,  and  who  bow  down 
to  all  the  dictates  of  social  etiquette  in  matters  of  be- 
havior, are  deprived  in  many  ways  of  their  efficiency. 
The  energy  expended  In  repressing  harmless  desires  could 
be  applied  for  more  useful  ends. 

Many  children  commit  unethical  actions  because  no  one 

I   has  pointed  out  to  them  a  sensible  way  of  dealing  with 

^    reality.     Their  ego  urge  compels  them  to  seek  notoriety, 

leadership,  power.     They  attain  that  aim  by  outdoing  the 

"  gang's  "  previous  misdeeds. 

Bad  boys,  treated  as  I  have  seen  them  treated  by  men 
like  Bartholomay  in  Dallas  or  Nathan  Peyser  in  New 
York  City,  allowed  to  share  in  many  of  the  responsible 
activities  of  the  school,  to  attend  to  matters  generally 
entrusted  to  adults,  admitted  to  conferences  at  which  the 
school's  welfare  Is  discussed,  asked  for  advice  which  very 
often  proves  extremely  sensible,  find  in  such  socially  use- 
ful activities  the  notoriety  and  power  which  are  necessary 
to  their  mental  well-being. 

The  child's  ambition  is  to  be  a  grown-up.  To  many 
children,  unfortunately,  being  a  grown-up  is  symbolized 
only  by  smoking,  drinking  and  sexual  indulgence.  Young 
egotists  permitted  to  share  in  the  useful  activities  of 
grown-ups  would  soon  enjoy  a  form  of  gratification  which 
would  not  harm  their  environment  and  would  bring  no 
retribution  in  its  wake. 

With  imagination  educators  could  easily  find  socially 
worthy  outlets  for  every  "  bad  boy's  "  egotistical  cravings. 


THE   NEW    ETHICS  25 1 

Given  a  chance  to  be  pleasantly  ethical,  few  boys  would 
brave  the  hardships  that  go  with  unethical  urge-gratifi- 
cation. 

The  bad  boy's  main  fault  is  his  belief  in  the  reality  of 
romance.  The  cure  for  his  ills  is  the  full  understanding 
of  the  romance  of  reality. 

What  I  have  said  of  children  applies  to  a  great  extent^ 
to  grown-ups.     The  adult  who  believes  in  the  reality  of  \ 
romance  may  either  commit  an  unethical  action  or  merge 
into  a  neurose,  which  is  also  an  unethical  action,  involun- 
tary as  it  may  be. 

"  When  we  cease  to  believe  in  miracles,"  Nietzsche 
writes,  "  we  shall  try  to  find  out  first  how  much  energy  is 
inherited,  secondly  how  new  energy  can  be  aroused, 
thirdly  how  the  individual  can  be  adapted  to  the  manifold 
claims  of  culture  without  being  disquieted  or  having  his 
personality  destroyed." 

In  psychoanalytic  language,  we  shall  find  out,  first, 
what  our  urges  are,  how  they  can  be  given  adequate  out- 
lets, how  these  outlets  may  be  equalized  so  that  the 
individual  shall  escape  both  a  neurose  and  a  jail 
sentence. 

Man's  duty  in  the  future  shall  be  represented  by  one 
word:  Health, —  health  which  will  mean  mental  and 
physical  happiness  and  efficiency  and  will  enable  us  to  co- 
operate fully  with  other  human  beings,  without  ever  be- 
coming a  burden  to  the  community. 

Mental  health  is  conditioned  by  our  willingness  or  our 
power  to  face  things.  A  neurose  after  all  is  something 
that  we  refuse  to  face,  often  because  mock-ethical  teach- 
ings have  taught  us  not  to  face  it. 

No  one  can  read  the  works  of  White,  Jelliffe,  Kempf 


252  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

and  Cannon  without  being  led  to  suspect  that  our  mental 
inability  or  refusal  to  face  things  as  they  are  is  responsible 
for  an  enormous  number  of  diseases  which  to-day  are  con- 
sidered as  purely  organic. 

No  one  really  has  to  be  abnormal.  The  very  compli- 
cation of  our  civilization  makes  for  a  variety  of  oppor- 
tunities which  should  be  given  to  the  accentuated  traits  of 
our  nature. 

Even  a  person  with  a  slightly  exaggerated  sadistic 
trend  could  be  made  useful  to  society  while  utilizing  his 
idiosyncrasy  to  valuable  ends.  A  surgeon's  profession,  a 
butcher-shop  would,  according  to  the  man's  educational 
level,  satisfy  sadistic  cravings. 

The  masochist  would  conversely  find  useful  employ- 
ment, peculiarly  suited  to  his  unconscious  desires,  in  so- 
cial work,  nursing,  etc. 

The  task  of  modern  ethics  will  not  be  the  barren  task 
of  the  old  ethics.  The  old  ethics  condemned  and  pro- 
nounced sentences;  the  new^  ethics  will  understand  and 
find  a  rational  use  for  everything  human.  Ethics  will  not 
waste  any  human  material,  physical  or  mental.  Our  in- 
efficient courts  and  absurd  prisons  are  essentially  immoral. 
For  as  Kempf  says,  "  No  matter  how  holy  and  sanctified 
the  laws  may  seem  to  sound,  if  suppressive  wasters  of 
energy,  they  are  immoral." 

The  new  ethics  will  constantly  bear  in  mind  that  life 
is  meant  to  be  lived  fully  and  joyfully  in  a  social  sense, 
not  in  a  selfish  sense,  and  is  not  a  preparation  for  death 
but  an  aim  and  end  in  itself. 

Nietzsche,  who  in  many  respects  has  been  a  forerunner 
of  the  analysts,  makes  Zarathustra  say. 


THE   NEW   ETHICS  253 


"  Since  humanity  came  into  being,  man  has  enjoyed 
himself  too  little.  That  alone,  my  brethren,  is  our  orig- 
inal sin."  f 


GLOSSARY 

Abreaction:  The  process  of  discharging  repressed  emotion  con- 
nected with  a  painful  past  experience  by  describing  the  ex- 
perience vividly  to  the  analyst. 

Addison's  Disease:     Bronzed  skin  disease. 

Aerophobia:     Fear  of  high  places. 

Affect:     A  sum  of  excitation. 

Agoraphobia:     Fear  of  open  spaces. 

Ambivalence:  The  experiencing  of  opposite  feelings  at  the  same 
time,  such  as  love  and  hatred  for  the  same  person. 

Aphasia:     Inability  to  speak. 

Arithmomania:     The  impulse  to  count  everything. 

Astrapaphobia:     Fear  of  thunder  and  lightning. 

Auto-Erotism:     Self-gratification  of  an  infantile  character. 

Basedow's  Disease:     Exophthalmic  goitre. 

Bestiality:     See  Zoophilism. 

BiSEXUALisM:  The  condition  of  a  person  equally  attracted  by 
both  sexes. 

Blocking:  A  difficulty  in  association  caused  by  the  touching  of  a 
complex  in  the  course  of  an  analysis. 

Catharsis:  A  mental  cleansing  performed  through  bringing  to 
the  consciousness  painful  and  repressed  facts  and  experiences. 

Claustrophobia:     Fear  of  enclosed  spaces. 

Condensation:  A  fusion  of  events,  thoughts,  pictures,  individ- 
uals. 

Constellation:     A  group  of  inter-related  complexes. 

Conversion  :  The  transformation  of  an  emotion  into  a  physical 
manifestation. 

Coprophilism  :  Gratification  derived  from  handling  filth,  feces, 
etc. 

Delusion  :    False  belief  reposing  on  no  logical  foundation. 

255 


256  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

Displacement:  Substitution  of  an  unimportant  idea  for  an 
important  one,  for  purposes  of  concealment. 

Electra  Complex:  An  exaggerated  attachment,  sometimes  of 
an  incestuous  or  neurotic  origin,  of  the  female  child  for  her 
father  and  her  consequent  hostility  to  her  mother, 

Erythromaxia  :     Compulsive  blushing. 

Erythrophobia  :     The  fear  of  the  color  red. 

Exhibitionism:  Gratification  experienced  through  exposing 
one's  body  or  genitals. 

Extroversion:  The  turning  of  one's  interests  toward  the  out- 
side world. 

Fetichism:  Gratification  derived  from  touching  or  looking  at 
certain  parts  of  the  body  or  a  piece  of  apparel  symbolizing  a 
part  of  the  body. 

Fixation  :  The  exaggerated  attachment  of  a  child  for  one  of  the 
parents. 

Graves's  Disease:     Exophthalmic  goitre. 

Hallucination  :  An  auditory  or  visual  sensation  originating  in 
the  mind  without  any  external  stimulus. 

Heliotropism:  A  forced  movement  in  the  direction  of  (posi- 
tive) or  away  from  (negative)  the  sun. 

iHeterosexuality  :  The  normal  attraction  for  persons  of  the 
opposite  sex. 

Homosexuality:  The  abnormal  attraction  for  persons  of  the 
same  sex. 

Introversion  :     The  turning  of  one's  interest  upon  one's  self. 

Kleptomania:     The  impulse  to  steal  things. 

Libido  (Freud)  :     Sexual  craving. 

Manic-Depressive  Psychosis:  A  mental  disturbance  character- 
ised by  more  or  less  durable  periods  of  agitation  followed  by 
periods  of  depression. 

Masochism  (from  Sacher-Masoch,  who  described  perversions) : 
Gratification,  sometimes  of  a  sexual  nature,  derived  from  sub- 
mitting to  domination,  violence  or  suffering. 


GLOSSARY  £57 

Megalomania:     Delusion  of  greatness. 

Metabolism:  The  transformation  of  foodstuffs  into  tissue  ele- 
ments and  of  complex  substances  into  simpler  ones  in  the  pro- 
duction of  energy. 

Migraine  :  A  headache  usually  unilateral  accompanied  by  gastric 
and  visual  disturbances. 

Narcism  (from  Narcissus,  the  youth  in  love  with  his  image): 
Gratification  derived  from  admiring  one's  self. 

Necrophilism  :  Gratification  derived  from  sexual  congress  with 
dead  bodies. 

Oedipus  Complex:  An  exaggerated  attachment,  sometimes  of 
an  incestuous  or  neurotic  origin,  of  the  male  child  for  his 
mother  and  his  consequent  hostility  toward  his  father. 

Onanism:     Sexual  self-gratification. 

Onomatomania:     The  impulse  to  repeat  certain  words. 

Parthenogenesis:  The  development  of  an  organism  from  an 
unfertilized  ovum  (egg). 

Phobia:     An  abnormal  fear. 

Phototropism  :  A  forced  movement  in  the  direction  of  (posi- 
tive) or  away  from  (negative)  the  source  of  light. 

Polymorphous  Perverse  ( Freud j:  Infantile  activities  similar 
to  adult  perversions. 

Pyromania:     The  impulse  to  set  fire  to  things. 

Sadism  (from  Marquis  de  Sade,  a  French  pervert)  :  Gratifica- 
tion, at  times  of  a  sexual  nature,  derived  from  overpowering 
or  torturing  others. 

Secondary  Elaboration:  The  attempt  of  the  dream-work  to 
bring  a  logical  sequence  into  the  apparently  disconnected  fabric 
of  the  dream-fantasy. 

Strabism:  Faulty  adjustment  of  the  ocular  muscles  which  pre- 
vents the  eyes  from  looking  in  the  same  direction  at  the  same 
time. 

Sublimation  (Freud)  :  The  directing  of  sexual  cravings  to- 
ward other  aims  of  a  non-sexual  nature. 


258  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

TiCQUEURS:     Persons  suffering  from  Tic,  or  muscular  spasm. 
Trigeminal     Neuralgia:     Neuralgia     affecting     the     three 

branches  of  the  trifacial  nerve  which  supply  the  face. 
Unconscious:     Ideas  or  memories  which  cannot  be  brought  to 

consciousness  without  extraneous  help. 
Voyeur:     A  person  who   derives  gratification  from  looking  at 

sexual  objects  or  witnessing  sexual  scenes. 
ZooPHiLiSM :     Gratification  derived  from  sexual  congress  with 

animals. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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